Page 31 of Miss Dramatic
Rose took a bite of her cream tart rather than stare at Hammond Cicero Drysdale slobbering over Lady Tavistock’s hand.
“I was a guest at a Nunnsuch house party earlier this year, and Lord Phillip and his prospective bride were also in attendance. I’d crossed paths with Miss Hecate Brompton in Town, though we weren’t at that point what I’d call friends.”
Rose wasn’t sure how Lady Phillip regarded her now, but friends was becoming a possibility.
“Not her ladyship,” Miss Peasegood said. “How did you meet Mr. DeWitt? You have taken every opportunity to glance his way without appearing to do so. He has barely taken his eyes off you, if it’s any consolation.”
The assembled guests were of that strata that spent half the day tending to correspondence, and if Rose lied to Miss Peasegood, she’d likely be found out. Somebody’s cousin kept in touch with somebody else’s neighbor in Town, who was always exchanging letters with somebody else’s friend from finishing school…
“I crossed paths with Mr. DeWitt at another house party,” Rose said. “Lady Rutherford was our hostess, up in Derbyshire the year before last. I was reading, or trying to read, Wordsworth, because one is supposed to read and quote him, though at the time…”
“The poet struck you as self-absorbed and pretentious. What woman has time towander lonely as a cloud, for pity’s sake—except in the symbolic sense? Few of us are even permitted to walk in solitude, but do go on. I can wax very opinionated. I trust you find that nearly impossible to believe.”
Miss Peasegood was poking fun at herself, though she’d hit upon the very points that had annoyed Rose so much about Wordsworth’s verse.
“I was in the music room, where I hoped nobody would have thought to look for me. I’d taken a window seat, the better to enjoy the natural light, when Mr. DeWitt came in. The door was open. There was no reason for him not to spend an hour or so practicing his pianoforte or harp or whatever.”
“But he invaded your sanctuary?”
“No, he did not.” Rose thought back to that cool, blustery morning, the occasional leaf smacking softly against the panes at her back, while the house itself remained quiet. “He waited for me. Stood by the door in silence while I finished the stanza I was trudging through. He knew to wait. To spare me apologies, greetings, any sort of interruption, until I’d completed the poem.”
“Patience is a virtue. I have a cousin named Patience, as it happens. I enjoy a surfeit of cousins. Did you and Mr. DeWitt embark on a great literary dialogue?”
“We did not, not then. When I looked up, he was smiling at me. We’d been introduced at some point.” Rose did not say that he’d been a traveling player. “His gaze held such… such sympathy. As if he knew I’d been imposing some duty poetry on myself, and he understood how easily even one imbued with literary fortitude can be distracted from such a task. He offered a smile of commiseration, humor, and understanding.”
“I’ll grant you Mr. DeWitt is attractive, but I haven’t seen him smiling much.”
Rose hadn’t either. “You’ll know the smile I mean if he ever graces you with it. He becomes an ally with that smile, against all the foibles the flesh is heir to.”
At the end of the tent, Drysdale was making a fuss over his introduction to Lady Phillip. Gavin, standing next to Drysdale, did the pretty, looking gracious and handsome and nearly bored.
He was such an accomplished actor. Too accomplished.
“Did Mr. DeWitt bow and withdraw on that rascally smile?” Miss Peasegood asked.
Not rascally. Understanding, self-deprecating, humorous. Almost…tender. “He did not. I put Mr. Wordsworth aside and smiled back.”
“House parties do offer opportunities to form new friendships, don’t they?” Miss Peasegood finished her punch and set the glass down. “Let’s ride to the rescue, shall we?”
She was on her feet and wending between tables before Rose could retort with a hearty, “I’d rather not.” Gavin DeWitt was the equal of Hammond Drysdale, at least when it came to opening scenes and public introductions.
Rose nonetheless followed Miss Peasegood to the end of the tent, where Drysdale still had Lady Phillip’s hand in his.
“… for this wonderful opportunity to renew our acquaintance with our dear Galahad,” Drysdale was saying. “Though I suppose he’s DeWitt now, isn’t he? Gavin DeWitt.”
“I never did care for the stage name,” Gavin replied. “I always felt I was inviting dragons to pop out of dungeons with a name like that. Mrs. Roberts, I believe you know Mr. Drysdale. Miss Peasegood, might I see to the courtesies?”
The moment called for simple adherence to social protocol, but Miss Peasegood refused to oblige. She turned her azure gaze on Drysdale, and her demeanor, so amiable a few moments earlier, turned glacial. Not all dragons emerged from dungeons, apparently.
She did not extend her hand. “You may.”
“Miss Zinnia Peasegood,” Gavin said, “might I make known to you Mr. Hammond Drysdale, principal and manager of Drysdale’s Players. He joins us in the capacity of both guest and entertainer, as I understand it. Drysdale, Miss Zinnia Peasegood, late of Mayfair, I believe.”
Lady Phillip, who as a co-hostess might have intervened for the sake of the introductions, remained seated. Lord Phillip was watching from three tables away, while Lady Tavistock was in close conversation with her husband.
Lady Tavistock was not smiling. Miss Peasegood was not smiling. Even Drysdale had put away his smarmy ware, while Gavin was looking relaxed and preoccupied.
“And what repertoire do you intend to grace us with here in Berkshire?” Rose asked before the whole tent went silent.
