He added once: “I know what he means by that. The brightness of the day only comes to him when Juliet is there.”
“Of course a little while ago he was in love with someone else,” I pointed out. “Do you think he would have been true to Juliet if he had married her?”
“I am sure he would,” he answered.
“Otherwise,” I added, “it would all seem so pointless.”
“Life can sometimes be pointless, but let’s assume he would have been faithful unto death. Which he was … anyway.”
“He had scarcely time to be anything else.”
Edwin was so ready to laugh. He imbued our rehearsals with a sense of hilarity and I threw myself into it wholeheartedly.
I had never been happy like that at any time in my life.
Because I enjoyed the closeness of Edwin, the touch of his hands, the ardour in his voice when he embraced me, I knew that I wanted him as my husband. Before Harriet had come, I might have been a little ignorant of the relationship between men and women; but since she had come, I had learned much of these things. I had read my mother’s journal and she had said when she showed it to me that I was like her, which meant that I would not shrink from the physical aspect of love as some women like my Aunt Angelet had.
I knew that I wanted to make love with Edwin and that I should not lie shrinking in my marriage bed.
I loved the scene in the gallery when Juliet and Romeo are together and morning has come and he must leave her.
I savoured the words:
“Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale and not the lark, …”
And Romeo answers:
“It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.”
We did the scene again and again. It was his favourite too, he told me, although he hated leaving me.
“It’s only a play,” I told him, laughing.
“Sometimes I feel I am not acting at all,” he answered. “I can’t be, because I am sure I should be the world’s worst actor, and I fancy I cut quite a dash as Romeo.” Harriet was very critical of us when we rehearsed together. She was trying to make the Nurse the great part in the play now, and I must say she did it superbly. Although she could not look the part. Sometimes I think she did not intend to. She wanted everyone to say she should have taken Juliet.
But rehearsing was great fun and Harriet was superb. Lucas had now become Paris, the husband chosen for Juliet by her parents, and he played it better than I had expected he possibly could.
He told me that he had never enjoyed anything so much as this visit. “And it is all due to Harriet,” he added. Then he frowned. “She did not tell of her coming as it really happened.” He adored her and did not like to think she had disguised the truth. Then he smiled and added: “Harriet is by nature an actress and I think that she cannot stop herself playing a part.”
I could see that Lucas was growing up.
The day before the play was to be performed there was intense excitement throughout the château. We should have a considerable audience, for Lady Eversleigh had filled the place to its utmost capacity and because of the play she was inviting all those who were near enough to come. If necessary she said they could sleep on the floor of the great hall. It would not be the first time this had been done.
We had been through our dress rehearsal the previous day and I had thoroughly enjoyed it. I had always amused the children by imitating Miss Black, and I remembered how Dick and Angie had rolled about in mirth. I had been dressed up once and played the part of a robber who had come to the château to kidnap us all. I had so frightened the children that they had been nervous for weeks, and I realized I had been foolish, but at the same time I had played my part with conviction. And now I was determined to make a success of Juliet not only because I loved playing to Edwin’s Romeo but I wanted to convince Harriet that, although I might not give such a spectacular performance as she would have done, I was a tolerable actress.
Of course Harriet had her own special magic, and I could see that when she was on the stage even in a part such as that of the Nurse, everyone wanted to look at her all the time. She knew her words to perfection; she gave me a rather supercilious glance now and then, and I had the impression that she was almost hoping I should forget my lines. The scenes between the Nurse and Juliet were longer than they had been, for when she was to play the part she had extended them and they were there almost in their entirety. I could feel her eyes on my Juliet cap which she herself had longed to wear. I had the feeling that all the time she was resisting an impulse to snatch it off.
The great day came. Harriet had said that there would be no more rehearsing. What we must do now was to put the play from our minds. We had had the dress rehearsal, which had gone off fairly well; all we could do now was wait for the night.
I laughed at her and said she took it all too seriously. We were not professional players whose livelihood depended on our performance.
I walked in the gardens and Edwin joined me.
He asked me if I were nervous about the play. “It’s only a game really,” I said. “If we forget our lines everyone will laugh, and it will probably be greater fun than if we play like professionals, which we can’t in any case because we are not.”
“My mother is hoping to make an announcement tonight,” he said.
My heart began to beat faster and I waited expectantly, but he went on:
“She is hoping Charles is going to ask Charlotte to marry him in time for her to come onto the stage when the play is over and tell the company of the betrothal.” He frowned. “I am a little anxious,” he added.
“Why?”
“Charles has changed. I think poor Charlotte knows this. Have you noticed the difference in her?”
“I thought she seemed a little sad. But then I don’t know her very well and she has never seemed lively.”
“Charlotte has always been like that … the opposite of her brother. She is serious-minded and hides her feelings. But I don’t think she is very happy now.”
“Does she want to marry Charles or would it be one of those arranged marriages?”
“She wants it fervently, or did, and he seemed eager. But lately it has changed.”
I thought: Since we came. It is obvious Charles has fallen in love with Harriet. Oh, poor Charlotte. She must be wishing she had never set eyes on us.
“Perhaps I’m wrong,” said Edwin, and then characteristically, “I’m sure I am. There’ll be an announcement tonight, you’ll see. After all it’s what he came here for.”
He took my arm and pressed it. I was very happy then.
“Do you know,” he went on. “I fancy that before long I shall have to go away.”
“To join your father?”
“No … to England.”
“That would be dangerous.”
“I should not go in my own name. We would cross the Channel in secret and land in some lonely spot and we should be wearing somber clothes so that we looked exactly like everyone else. I am to spy out the land to meet those whom we know to be Royalists, to see what the mood of the people is … to pave the way for the King’s return.”
“When?”
“I am waiting now to hear. Messengers could come any day with a command for me to leave at once.”
“Not before the performance tonight!”
He laughed. “Oh, no fear of that. What a tragedy! Do you think the play would be impossible without me?”
“Where should I find another Romeo?”