After Forever Ends (23 page)

“Thanks, Eddie.”

“Silvia,” He smiled, “Don’t call me Eddie anymore. Call me Dad.”

More tears came to my eyes, but this time they were happy ones. I launched myself into Eddie’s arms and clung to him, “I love you, Dad!” I swore.

“I love you, too, Daughter!” He petted my hair, and then asked quietly, “Now you’re sure, right? Absolutely no muffins?”

“Get off it, Old Man!” Alexander slapped his father on the back, “I’m sure one day Ollie and Sil will have at least a dozen muffins, but not today. Speaking of muffins, I’m bloody starving!” He turned to my father, “Where you taking us, Phil?”

It was surreal having spent two wonderful, romantic weeks alone with my new husband and, upon announcing our nuptials, being scolded as if we were five years old by our parents, Oliver having his head practically pulverised, then being forgiven immediately, taken to dinner and dropped off at school by my father.

“Thanks for the lift, Phil,” Alex told dad as he got out of the passenger’s side of the car. He waited a moment for Oliver, Lucy and me to climb out of the back. “See you later, Sil,” He gave me a quick hug. When he looked at Oliver, his face was stone serious, “Let me know how it goes with Madame Pennyweather tonight.”

“I’ll see you at breakfast if not sooner,” Oliver replied as if he were not even concerned. “Night, Lucy Cotton!” He pulled her into a playful hug.

“Night, Oliver,” Lucy kissed his cheek, then mine, “Night, Silvia,” She gave her prettiest, sweetest smile to Alexander. “Are you ready to show a lady to her door?”

“A lady? You’re nothing more than a teensy weensy munchkin!” He teased. “I, however, am a gentleman and I will chivalrously escort even a munchkin to her door, least some foul menace cross her path.” He held out his hand in a courtly manner, making a deep bow. She placed her palm in his and giggled. Alex kissed her knuckles, “May I have your arm, Milady?”

“Certainly, Milord!” Lucy slipped her arm through his. She looked over her shoulder at Oliver and me and giggled again as Alexander gallantly led her through the gate and on to the school grounds.

My father caught Oliver’s attention with a short wave. Ollie waved back and nodded as if to say everything was fine.

The moment the car drove away I started to cry again. Oliver pulled me close, “Why are you crying, Sil?” He asked tenderly just as it began to rain.

Headmistress Pennyweather came rushing out of the gate, “Oliver! Silvia!” She held an umbrella over the three of us, “I’ve been waiting for you! I need to speak to you both, please come in!”

She took us into the building and ushered us into her office. “Sit, sit,” She motioned to the chairs in front of her desk as she hurried behind it and sat in her own, “I understand you two were married,” She said with no hint of a smile, “I suppose congratulations are in order. However, this puts the three of us in an awkward position. You see, until I have permission from the board I cannot allow the two of you to co-habitate on school premises.”

I could not stop crying. It was as if someone was removing my heart with a spoon. I had felt no anxiety at all about being married to Oliver, but the thought of him being taken away was more than I could bear. I wanted to finish school, I truly did, but it seemed such a silly thing now to be living at a place where there were classes and schedules and other people’s rules. I was no longer a child. I had left that behind in an ancient, tiny cabin on a hill. I was someone’s wife now, a woman and I wanted…no, I needed… my husband beside me. They had no right…no right at all…to take him away from me. Yet I was helpless to stop them.

Oliver still had his arms around me, holding me close to his side as we sat in those awful straight-backed chairs. I buried my head into his chest and continued to sob hopelessly.

“You’ll have to sleep in your separate dormitories as you always have,” She clicked the top of her pen, “Naturally, you’ll have to attend and complete all your courses. And your free time is, as previously, your free time to spend as you wish,” She tilted her head, “Observing proper conduct, of course.”

I didn’t listen to the rest of what she had to say. It seemed like hours before she dismissed us, although we never left her office. I sat there crying while Oliver held me close and told me it was only temporary. “We’ll be able to be together all the time soon, Sil,” He kissed the top of my head, “I know it’s hard. It’s killing me, too, but we’ll get through it. I promise!”

I knew the headmistress was still sitting at her desk. I was very aware that she was watching us and even more aware that she was straining to hear every word we said.

“I don’t want to be here!” I sobbed, “I want to go back to the cabin and be with you!”

“Me, too, Sil. Me, too, but we can’t right now.”

“No, Oliver, let’s not stay here!” I hissed into his chest, “Let’s just go! Please! They’re going to chuck us out anyway!”

“Maybe not, Love. Maybe not,” He pushed the hair back from my forehead, “The term’s almost up. They’ve never had students go and elope on them before. This is all new to them as well. They just have to make some arrangements…”

“Arrangements? Make arrangements? What about our arrangements? We’ve got a life, too, and this is like…this is like taking a step backward!” I felt slightly hysterical. It was all I could do to keep from shouting, “I can’t stand it! I don’t want to sleep without you…not once…not one night…not ever!” I shook with sobs, “Please, let’s just get out of here!”

“Silvia, listen to me,” He moved away from me so that I had to tilt my head back to look up into his face. His dark eyes searched mine as if he was looking for some sort of reason he could reach within them, “We have to graduate! What’s the point of all the time we’ve spent in school if we don’t? I’ll tell you what’ll happen. I can’t get a decent job and we can’t afford to put a lid on a basket for our muffins!” I couldn’t help it, I began to laugh. He let me rest my face against him again and held me tight, swaying softly, “You are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. You and me, Sil. You and me, we’re magic, remember? And nobody is going to take one of us away from the other forever! So it’s a couple of nights or it’s six weeks and then we graduate. We get out of this place and we go home…”

“To the cabin?”

“My dad says yeah, we can have it,” He smiled an easy smile down at me, “I reckon we can fix it up some, mind. Put on a couple of rooms. Maybe even build us a right proper toilet,” He pinched me lightly on the chin, “And I can continue to work for the flour mill, it’s not far, and we can still go to university…”

“I just want to be with you.”

“You are with me.” He put my hand over his heart, “Here, Love. Always. Here.” He rocked me like a baby for a long time, smoothing down the curls in my hair with his long fingers.

Our headmistress finally spoke, “I’m sorry. I truly am, you don’t know how sorry, but it’s gotten terribly late. I have to ask you both to return to your dormitories.”

I held tighter to Oliver. I had made a huge circle of wet with my tears down the front of his uniform and his shirt stuck to my cheek.

“OK,” He answered her softly, “Just one more moment, please?”

I could see her through the bend in his sleeve. She nodded, looking sincerely sympathetic, “One more moment would be fine,” She told him.

“Listen to me, Love,” Oliver pulled back again just a little and looked into my eyes. He cocked his head and wiped my cheeks with his sleeve, “Just Silvia Cotton isn’t Just Silvia Cotton anymore. She’s Just Silvia Dickinson now and she’s my wife,” He moved the band on my finger from side to side, “Someone special gave me that ring a long, long time ago and I’ll tell you the story another time. But I want you to know that it’s magic, OK?” He looked around quickly, glancing at the headmistress, who was pretending not to hear, “It’s as magic as you and me. Now, go. Go and get some sleep and know that I’m thinking and I’m dreaming about you, same as always. I’ll see you at breakfast. Fat sausages and eggs and hot porridge, toast and bacon…and me. All your favourite things at one table, eh?” He looked deep into me, right into my soul, “I love you, Sil. Never doubt it, never forget it.” His grasp loosened, but he kissed me. “It’ll be OK.”

I released him reluctantly. “I love you, too” I sobbed. I couldn’t lift my head as he let me go. I just stared at his legs.

Headmistress took me by the arm, “I trust you can find your way to your room, Mister Dickinson?”

Yes, Ma’am,” He answered. “I can.”

“Goodnight then, Oliver,” She said quietly, rising to her feet, “I will take care of your young Missus.”

“Thank you,” He answered, but he didn’t move.

“I said goodnight, Oliver.” She said more sternly. I think she pointed to the door, “Go!”

He did as he was told slowly, touching my shoulder as he went.

I swear I sank right there and would have hit the floor, but Headmistress caught me, “Now, now, Miss Cotton…well, I suppose I can’t call you that anymore, but it seems so odd to call you Missus Dickinson. Perhaps I’ll just call you Silvia, if you don’t mind,” She was speaking rapidly in a tone that said it was not sure if she were addressing a woman or a child, “Now, now, Silvia,” She started again, “It’ll just be a few hours and you’ll see him again. I’m no ogre, you know, and if things were just up to me I’d give you quarters together, seeing as you are married and as far as I know there are no rules as far as being married and attending this school,” She paused again, “But it’s never happened before…and there are rules about boys and girls being in each other’s dormitories,” She squeezed my shoulders, helping me back to my feet, “I’ve been watching you and Oliver for as long as you’ve been here and I’ve seen…” We took a few steps, “I’ve seen that there’s been something special between the two of you since he hit you in the head with that ball…yes, I saw that, too…I see everything…and what I don’t see I either get told by the professors or the students…” A few more steps, we were through the door, “But, please listen to me now. I have no intention of expelling either one of you for the simple crime of getting married. It’s the natural thing that people who meet and fall in love do sooner or later...”

“Headmistress Pennyweather?” My voice was shaking.

“Yes, Dear?”

“I want you to expel us.”

She burst into laughter, a sound like bubbles that I had never heard come from her. “Missus Dickinson! The very thought!” She patted my back, “You are one of my top students! You are an excellent candidate for a scholarship to university! I couldn’t see it right to expel you just because you want to go! And I would hate to see you resign the school! I enjoy having both you and Oliver here very much! You two bring life to this stuffy place! Plus, if the two of you left I would think Alexander would go and then my detention pad would be lonely,” She chuckled. “We will find a way, I promise. We will find a way for you both to be together and see a successful finish here at Bennington.”

We finally made it to the door of my room in the dormitory. “Thank you,” I said meekly.

“You are welcome,” She smiled softly. The creases beside her eyes deepened as she put her ageing hand on my shoulder, “Sleep now, breakfast will come sooner. And please remember what Oliver said to you, Silvia. Love has a magical way of making everything work out just right. Don’t doubt it or forget it.”

She waited for me to go inside the room and close the door. I heard her shoes clicking until they turned the corner the end of the hall. “Hi, Sandy,” I said weakly, turning toward my friend, “How was your holiday?”

“Why are you crying?” Sandra asked with concern. She was standing between our beds in her pyjamas and had obviously been waiting for me for a while. There were two sodas and a half-eaten box of chocolate rings on my bed, “And why did you get here so late? I was worried! I thought you weren’t going to come back. I thought maybe you’d had a crash…oh, no! Oh my! Is it Oliver? Is he OK?”

“Oh, Sandy!” I fell on to my bed, “It’s terrible!”

I told her everything. I buried my face into my pillow and sobbed until my head pounded and my teeth hurt.

She handed me the last tissue just as my eyes swelled shut, “Well, you’ll see him soon, won’t you?” She said in a comforting tone, rubbing my back with the flat of her hand, “Oliver! Your husband! Wow, you’re the only person my age I’ve ever known who got married! But you didn’t tell me what it was like.”

“What was like?” I was breathing through my mouth like a fish out of water with my face pressed against the pillow.

“You know…it…you know…sex.”

“Oh,” I thought it was a silly question, “It was like…well, magic.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes,” I mumbled, “But I never got my socks back.”

I didn’t hear what she had to say after that, I was sound asleep.

The news of Oliver’s and my marriage spread like wildfire throughout the school. By lunch we were being stared and pointed at. “No photos, please!” Oliver said grandly as he passed a table of gawking sixth year girls. He lifted his food tray as if to block his face, “Show starts at eleven, Everyone! It’s nearly sold out, so if you haven’t gotten tickets already, buy them soon! They’re on sale in the middle room!”

That was Oliver, always making a joke of everything. I didn’t find it quite as funny.

At dinner Lance and Merlyn joined us at our table. They came in together and took their usual seats, giving us generic greetings. Immediately afterwards the awkward silence set in.

“How you holding up, Mate?” Lance finally asked Oliver as he mashed his potato with his fork.

“What do you mean?” Oliver was perfectly casual.

“Well, everyone’s talking about you two being married,” Merlyn began slowly. His lovely brown eyes flicked up to meet mine and then went straight down again.

“I know. But it seems to me they’re not saying much.” Oliver bit into a carrot and immediately spat it out, “Bloody disgusting! I hate when they make them sweet!”

“No, they’re saying plenty,” Lance’s pale green eyes were filled with sympathy, “Not that Merlyn or I believe any of it, you see.”

“It’s all bullocks,” Alexander said through a mouthful of stew, “Don’t you give it any mind, Sil.”