Page 66 of Miss Dramatic
If Gavin had been directing the action, he could not have asked for a better sequence of cues, lines, and stage business. Ah, well. A bit of improvisation, then.
The folding doors between the music room and family parlor had been pulled back, the resulting space adequate to accommodate all the guests. Drysdale took a seat near the door to the guest parlor, while Gavin paced up and down before the pianoforte as if rehearsing his lines. He’d come upon the sonnets as a boy of fourteen, and they’d captivated his adolescent imagination as only artful references to love could interest a lad of that age.
The verses were old friends, and how fitting that they should come to his aid in the present circumstances.
“Do the summer’s day one,” Lady Duncannon said. “We aging beauties take comfort from those lines.”
“I see no aging beauties,” Tavistock said. “Only vintages approaching their prime.”
“I second No. 18,” Lady Phillip called. “‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ I have some lovely memories of summer days. I do believe that one is my favorite.”
Gavin obliged, and reciting for an audience of mostly ladies gave the poetry a different scope, gave him, in the role of lover, a different perspective. They were, all of them, worthy of such rhymes, or should regard themselves thus.
Gavin laid a hand on the piano, paused, and directed his gaze to Rose, who sat in the shadows near the great harp. “‘So long as men can breathe or eyes can see. So long lives this and this gives life to thee.’”
Somebody sniffled. Rose began to fan herself languidly. Drysdale had slipped from the room.
Fast work.If Gavin hadn’t known better, he’d have said Drysdale’s exit was right on cue.
“Do the gentlemen have a request?” he asked. “Lord Phillip, have you a favorite?”
Phillip asked for No. 102, a fitting choice given his retiring nature. The Bard made the point that like a nightingale that waxed lyrical in spring and became silent over summer, mature love could be quieter than the first throes of infatuation—quieter, deeper, and sweeter.
Lady Phillip had taken her husband’s hand before Gavin had rendered the closing couplet—and Lady Iris had discreetly followed Drysdale out the door.
As a nod to the fellows, Gavin moved on to No. 61, a lesser-known treasure that compared true love to insomnia. By the time he’d finished No. 116—“Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds”—an obligatory item on any menu of romantic sonnet, it was time to bring the curtain down.
“One more,” Gavin said, “of my choosing, in honor of the present company.” He let his gaze travel around the room, resting only briefly on Rose. “Attend me, friends, for the Bard speaks from my heart.”
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate…
Handkerchiefs were dabbed against cheeks. Lord Phillip kissed his wife’s knuckles, and Mama was blinking at the carpet. Gavin focused on Rose, whose fan lay in her lap, and tried to will her to meet his gaze.
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Gavin expected a polite patter of applause and got only silence. For the space of two heartbeats, he fretted that he’d disappointed his audience, then Amaryllis rose from her chair by the hearth and threw her arms around him.
“That was wonderful,” she said, hugging him tightly as the other guests began clapping. “Wonderful, magnificent. You’ve ruined us for any other version of the sonnets. Ruined us utterly.”
Rose was smiling—breaking role, shame on her—and Gavin smiled back over Amaryllis’s shoulder.
“Well done,” Phillip said, passing Gavin a brandy when Amaryllis had retreated. “Exquisitely done. One suspected, but the proof overwhelms all doubt.”
What proof? What doubt? Before Gavin could ask, Phillip had withdrawn to make himself useful serving drinks and passing around tea.
