“Not in the least. Just plain reasoning. Charles Condey is not without means either.”
“You have done your work well.”
“I just use my ears and eyes. Mademoiselle Charlotte is enamoured of Condey. I think there may well be an announcement. Remember we were told it was a family gathering tonight. Well, that is significant, don’t you think?”
“Perhaps.”
“Poor Charlotte, she is hardly the world’s most attractive woman, is she?”
“How could she be when you have seized that title?”
“How discerning of you.”
“Not particularly. I thought it was the message you were conveying at the table and after.”
“You are a little sour tonight, Arabella. Why?”
“Perhaps,” I replied, “I am tired. I should like to sleep, you know. It has been a long day.”
She was silent.
Sour? I thought. Was she right? Was I thinking that I wanted Edwin to like me, to be interested in me; and I wondered if it would be possible for him to notice me very much when there was such a dazzling creature as Harriet about.
The next day everyone talked of nothing but the play. Harriet called a meeting in the morning and we all discussed how we should set about the project.
Oddly enough she had the script with her. “I always take a few with me when I visit, because if people show themselves to be interested, I am ready,” she explained. So she had planned this. I saw it clearly now. She had led the conversation that way during dinner; she had come prepared. Sometimes she astonished even me.
But she had certainly fired their enthusiasm. Lady Eversleigh was delighted, for I could see that Harriet had taken the burden of entertaining her guests completely from her shoulders.
Other guests would be arriving over the next few days, and when they did we would put the proposition to them, and if any of them would like to join in, they could do so.
Romeo and Juliet would be difficult, Harriet admitted, but if they could do it, it would be like a touch of home to the exiles, and she was sure it would be more welcome than some light French farce. We should have to work, of course. We should have to learn our lines, but as the play would be very much abridged, that would not be such a great task except for the principals.
She smiled at Edwin. “You must be Romeo,” she said, and there was admiration in her gaze.
“‘O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art though Romeo?’” he said. “That’s all I know of the words.”
“Then,” I said, “You will have a great task before you.”
“We shall have a prompter,” soothed Harriet.
“I’ll be prompter,” volunteered Charlotte.
Harriet looked at her coolly. “Perhaps that would be a good idea. Though we do need so many players, there are not many female roles.”
“Bess Tredager will revel in it,” said Edwin. “She’ll like a big part. And then there is John Messenger and James and Ellen Farley. They will relish it.”
“Then,” said Harriet, turning to Charlotte, “it seems likely that we shall need you just out of sight with the script. It’s not a bad idea, as there are so few women’s parts in the play. Some of the women may have to take men’s roles. That should be amusing. There are only the Ladies Capulet and Montague … and the Nurse, of course.”
She was looking at me, a trifle maliciously, I thought. It was almost as though she wanted to shut me out.
She had turned to Edwin. “We shall have to work hard together,” she said.
“I am sure it will be more like pleasure than work,” he replied.
“Are you good at learning?”
“No good at all,” he replied cheerfully. “I think you should make me the scene shifter.”
“Ah, scenery! We have to devise something. But you are certainly Romeo. The part fits you.”
“Then I shall have to rely on Charlotte. And I’m sure you’ll give me a tip too when I need it.”
“You can be sure I shall do all I can to guide you,” replied Harriet.
Lady Eversleigh looked in to say that there were several trunks of clothes in the attics and we might like to go through them to see if we could find something that would be useful. We were all excited at the prospect and immediately trooped up to the attics.
What a hilarious morning that was! There were clothes in trunks which must have been there for years. Shrieks of laughter echoed in the old rafters as we tried on the oddest of garments. Harriet, however, found much there that could be adjusted. There was in particular a little black cap which fitted closely to the head. It was covered in stones which looked like coral and turquoise and had a peak which came halfway down the forehead. I was the first to see it; I seized it and put it on my head.
“It’s lovely!” cried Charlotte.
Edwin was smiling at me. “You must wear that,” he said. “It suits you.”
Harriet had come to me. “Why, it’s Juliet’s cap,” she said. “It’s just the thing.” She took it from my head and put it on her own. I suppose if it had looked effective on me, it would look doubly so on her. She certainly looked very handsome, for the jewels set off her magnificent colouring.
Charlotte said surprisingly: “It really suits Arabella’s colouring better.”
Harriet took it off and looked at it. “What a find,” she cried. “It is Juliet’s cap.”
We were all late for the midday meal but Lady Eversleigh was delighted. She was a born hostess and she must be thinking that her guests would so appreciate this house party that they would talk about it even when they returned to England.
That afternoon we went for a ride and I found myself side by side with Edwin.
He told me that very soon he would be expected to go to England. They were waiting for the command to leave. It seemed that the time had come to assess the effect of Oliver’s death. This was why he was with his family. At the appointed time he would leave for England to, as he put it, “spy out the land.”
“Wouldn’t it be rather dangerous?” I asked.
“If our mission were discovered … perhaps.”
“What I remember of it,” I said, “there was so much wanton destruction. I can recall how peaceful it seemed when we came to France, because even when we were with my grandparents in Cornwall, there was an uneasiness and we were watching all the time.”
“Danger can be exciting,” he said. “There is always that, you know.”
“Do you find exile dull?”
“The last few days have been far from dull. I am so glad my parents met yours and that this should be the result.”
“It is kind of you to say so, and a great adventure for us. We have lived very quietly in Château Congrève.”
“I know how it is. My mother has found it most irksome. In the old days she always had the house full of guests. Her desire to get back is an obsession.”
“As it must be for so many. Are you among them?”
He was silent for a while. Then he said: “I have always been able to accept what is—perhaps because I don’t take life seriously enough. You’ll no doubt find me rather frivolous.”
“Shall I?”
“Oh, yes. In these days it is better not to take things too much to heart. Life changes. Let us enjoy what we can while we can. That’s my motto.”
“It’s probably a good one. It prevents repining.”
“Laugh and be merry, for who knows what the morrow will bring?”
“It must be wonderful to feel like that. You are never greatly concerned about what may happen.”
“My father says I should be more serious now that I am a man, but it is difficult to cast off the habit of a lifetime. I have the gift … if you can regard it as such … of living in the moment, forgetting the past and letting the future take care of itself. At the moment I am completely happy. I can think of nothing more delightful than riding with Mistress Arabella Tolworthy.”