Page 30 of An Offer for a Spinster
The heavy velvet curtain on the stage undulated, indicating that it would be raised soon. The chatter in the audience dimmed just a little, expectantly.
“It’s been far too long since I saw this play,” Lady Katherine remarked, voice low. “I’m as excited as a child.”
“So am I,” he responded. “This is Rebecca’s first time seeing the play.”
“When I first read L. Sterling’s book,Roses for Violet, I was shocked at how strongly Violet resembled Beatrice. You know, the character in the play. Everybody’s favourite.”
“Ah, yes, the witty heroine,” Timothy managed. It still felt odd, hearing his own books and characters so casually mentioned. “I believe she was based on Beatrice.”
“Yes, it seems that way,” Lady Katherine laughed, and he was able to recover himself and his slip-up.
There was a comfortable pause, not the tense silences Timothy was used to around his family and some acquaintances. It didn’tfeellike a silence. It felt as though there was plenty of them to say, but neither of them was in a rush to say it.
“You understand them so well,” Lady Katherine blurted out, after a minute or two, almost as if she’d been waiting to say it. “The L. Sterling books, I mean. Have you really read them all?”
Timothy swallowed. “Every single one. Sometimes I think I can recite them in my sleep.”
“So do I,” Katherine laughed. “I remember the very first book I ever read by that author. There was something fascinating about it, something breathless andreal. Some authors seem intent on getting a moral across, and some of themale authors seem to enjoy making their poor heroines suffer.The Monkwas one of those books. I couldn’t finish it; it was too awful.”
Timothy winced, recollecting the book in question – full of assaults, unspeakable crimes, and suffering. He’d read in it in full, after his editor suggested he do so, and it had left him with a bitter taste in his mouth. Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, on the other hand, were a little more palatable.
“I feel as though the author does have a message they want to convey,” he said slowly. “All of the main characters – heroes and heroines – are not permitted to be passive. They make things happen. They make mistakes, too, but the mistakes are their own. They take responsibility for what they have done, too.”
“Like Pierre La Blondeville,” Katherine interjected eagerly. “His arc of redemption was truly compelling. I couldn’t put it down. But I do think that his acceptance of his own crimes, and the way he did penance, made the difference between we readers forgiving him or not.”
“Yes, I imagine that was what the author intended,” he responded, allowing himself a small half-smile. “If I were to guess, I would say that good old Pierre was one of the trickiest characters that author ever wrote. I can almost imagine the editor haranguing the poor author, insisting on endless edits.”
“Oh, Timothy, you are funny,” she said, laughing. “As if any editor would dare to nag L. Sterling. Why, the author is one of the most famous of our era! No editor would dare contradict them. Having said that, I imagine the publishing house is getting nervous over the length of time it’s taking for the finalRosaliebook to be released. We’re all on tenterhooks, wouldn’t you say? I for one can’t wait to find out what happens next.”
Timothy, who had every line of the third book’s plot engraved on his head, smiled nervously. He was still reelingfrom the implication that his editors would not dare nag him – a sentiment Mr. Hawthorne certainly did not share – when Lord Barwood leaned forward, a heavy hand landing on Timothy’s shoulder, making him jump.
“I do hope you two aren’t going to whisper throughout the whole play,” he muttered, the smile on his lips not quite reaching his eyes. “If you persist in distracting Lady Katherine, Mr. Rutherford, I’ll have to insist on us swapping seats.”
The large hand on his shoulder flexed, fingertips driving painfully into Timothy’s skin. He suppressed a wince.
“My apologies, sir,” he responded brusquely. There was a flourish of music, the curtain began to rise, and Lord Barwood was obliged to sit back and be quiet.
Timothy had seen the famous Shakespeare play so many times he could almost recite each line.
“I would rather hear my dog bark at a crow, than a man swear he loves me,”insisted fiery Beatrice, while her sweet cousin Hero hid her smile behind her hand.
“Let me be as I am, and seek not to alter me,”spat the villainous Don John, who Timothy had always rather sympathized with – the man was clearly chafing under his half-brother’s reign, although he didn’t exactly help his own case.
“I do love nothing in the world so well as you,”Benedict murmured, at the climax of the play, when Hero was disgraced and her cousin Beatrice sitting crumpled on the edge of the stage.“Is not that strange?”
When Beatrice shouted out,“O, God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace,”the theatre rang, and he heard Lady Katherine’s breath catch in her throat.
Wasn’t that the way every woman felt when her friend, her family member, had been hurt, and she found herself helpless to defend them. He could not imagine the simmering rage, the endless depths of fury a woman might feel at a time like that.
Glancing over Lady Katherine, who was intent on the stage, eyes glittering, lips parted, he could almost see her – a bloody, still-beating heart in her fist, its blood seeping down her arm and staining her face, a dead villain lying at her feet.
Then he blinked, and the moment was gone, the scene was over, and the next one was beginning.
Lady Katherine leaned towards him, close enough to brush their shoulders together.
“That particular scene always has the power to stir within me a shiver of intense emotion,” she admitted. “I can’t hear it often enough.”
“I agree,” he responded. “I think Claudio should think himself lucky Beatrice was not a man – or at least, didn’t get her hands on him. I’m not sure he would have lived to make amends with the woman he spurned.”
