SLEEP WARM

Before Charles left Ellen to rest after their evening of dining and dancing, they sat in silence on the davenport, enjoying the quiet ambience of the night with the exception of their ever so faintly heard heartbeats, the quarterly chimes of the grandfather clock in the lower hallway and the occasional sound of a rattling automobile trundling along the street outside.

The thought of having to depart from the woman he felt such overwhelming love for in this moment pained Charles, but it also made him happy to know she was safe and secure in her family home and that he could leave her without concern for her well being as he would shortly make his way to his own newly acquired property that he planned to share with Ellen soon to be their marital home.

"Promise to call me tomorrow?"

"You know I will. I always do."

Charles sighed openly in a state of total contentedness, just one indication of how relaxed he felt in Ellen's company. He had rarely felt such bliss as being in the presence of the woman he was shortly to marry. Of course, the feeling was mutual and Ellen had already spent most of the day telling her sister Mary about all of her dreams and plans for her future with her handsome and sensitive fiancé.

"I should go, my love. It's almost midnight."

Getting up to leave, slowly allowing Ellen the space to rise from where she had been resting her head against his chest, Charles admired her natural beauty and elegance from across the room as he offered his hands for her to take hold of.

"I'll miss you."

"I'll miss you too."

As their lips met in a tender kiss, the lamp in the parlour suddenly popped in a tiny electrical explosion and the couple were cast into darkness except for a thin slither of moonlight that illuminated their faces through the small crack in the velvet drapes.

"Oh my. Do you think we made that happen somehow?"

"I have no doubt about it."

Charles struck a match to light the thin taper candle in the brass candleholder on the bureau and as the room was suddenly suffused with warm, mellow candlelight the couple returned to their embrace after the minor interruption of the lamp's broken fuse.

Then, after a few moments, Charles reluctantly withdrew from Ellen's arms as she nodded, acknowledging it was getting late, confirmed by the chimes of midnight.

"Well, goodnight my love."

"Goodnight, dear Charles."

Placing a folded up piece of paper in the warm palm of her hand, Charles disappeared almost as if in a dream quietly through the front door, mindful to not disturb the rest of the family already fast asleep upstairs.

As Ellen quietly closed the door behind him, she ascended the staircase with the candle from the drawing room to her bedroom where she waved to Charles through the lace embroidered curtain.

From the street, looking up at Ellen, Charles admired the flickering silhouette of his love, framed like a shadow portrait at the window of her room.

He would miss these exquisite moments of separation when they finally lived together as husband and wife. There was something truly sublime about saying goodbye late at night, knowing the intervals between their farewells and next day greetings were so mercifully short and their enthusiastic anticipation to be with each other again became so increasingly pronounced with each passing day.

And as if by some cosmic coincidence to puntuate his thought, the street lamp next to him suddenly went dark af if it had been blown out by some invisible force.

Ellen could just make out Charles's final wave goodbye in the moonlit street as he walked home alone past the darkened houses of the neighbourhood. Unfolding the note in her hand she finally read the words he'd wanted to share with her before she fell asleep. A ritual of sorts, she had compared the daily notes he'd left with her as like Christmas presents of the heart, ones she could unwrap each night after they'd both said farewell.

Tonight was no different and as she read the brief message from her fiancé, she felt as happy as any woman in Connecticut had any right to feel, so much so that a few, warm tears fell onto Charles's elegant handwriting and ever so slightly smudged the words but not to the extent that she couldn't read them over and over again which she did until she eventually fell into a deep, blissful sleep.

Sleep warm, sleep tight, when you turn off the light,
Sleep warm, sleep well, my love.
Rest your head on the pillow, what a lucky pillow,
Close to you, so close to you all night.