Lament for a lost lover

‘Life can sometimes be pointless, but let’s assume he would I 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 he 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 chateau. 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 on the floor of the great hall. It would not be the fast time is had been done. , had been through our dress rehearsal the previous day and I d thoroughly enjoyed it. I had always amused the children by imitating Miss Black, and I remembered how Dick and Angie had lied about in mirth. I had been dressed up once and played the a robber who had come to the chateau 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.