Charming Ophelia

by Rachael Miles

  Ophelia removed several sandwiches to a plate and handed it to Judith and Tom.

  Tom picked up the butter and ham, leaving the watercress for Judith. “Ophelia, I’ve already told you which man gets the nod from me. By the way, I thought Sidney was coming for your birthday breakfast.”

  “Since he’s not here, I’m happy to eat his portion.” Aidan held out his plate to be filled. Ophelia took the plate from his hand, and rising, set it on the sideboard.

  Ophelia walked to the window once again, looking for Sidney Mason, their neighbor. Below the window, walking swiftly on the pavement in front of the house, Sidney, tall and smartly dressed, approached, carrying a large box. Seeing Ophelia standing in the window, Sidney, smiling, tipped his hat. Then balancing the box in one hand, he carefully mocked a full court bow. She held back a laugh, relieved. Surely, Tom would let go of the question of her marriage with Sidney present. And without Tom pursuing the question of her engagement, Sidney, always affable, would help her steer the conversation to something more entertaining. She needed time to consider Judith’s warning.

  Ophelia watched, rapt, as Sidney reached the porch, his long legs taking the steps two at a time. No man had the grace or style of Sidney Mason. Perhaps…but Sidney pitied her—and that made him a man she could not marry. She turned the thought away.

  Sidney entered the drawing room moments later. “I told the butler that I would announce myself.” He set the box on the edge of the desk and greeted the company. “I regret arriving late.”

  “Had you been any later, Aidan would have eaten all your breakfast. He’s already stolen all the remaining sandwiches.” Ariel held forth a plate with several tea cakes remaining. “I hid some food for you on my plate.”

  “That’s my girl, Ariel. Hold them just another moment for me, will you?” Sidney retrieved three wrapped objects from the box. “Every Gardiner girl gets a gift on Ophelia’s birthday—and Judith as well.” Both girls made quick work of the wrapping, Ariel receiving a stack of heavy drawing paper, and Kate a set of embroidery patterns first published in the Lady’s Magazine.

  Judith opened her gift with an enthusiasm equal to the younger girls’. “ The Castle of Wolfenbach! If I weren’t already married, I’d marry you in an instant! I’ve always wanted to read this. How did you know?”

  “I have my methods,” Sidney joked. Finding every chair occupied, he retrieved a taburet from before the window. He set it, and himself, next to Ophelia.

  “Speaking of marriage, Sidney, we’re trying to discover why Ophelia can’t make a decision between her three suitors,” Tom piped up from behind the desk. “Perhaps you can help us get to the bottom of it, though I’m still disappointed that she won’t have you.”

  “I can’t marry Sidney.” Ophelia poured Sidney’s tea, then prepared it as he liked it with a half a teaspoon of cream and a smidgen of sugar. “Now can I, Sid?”

  “I’ve given up declaring my affection, Tom.” Sidney shrugged, shaking his head. “Ophelia has determined that we are to be friends, good friends, until the day we die. And I’ve reconciled myself to dying a bachelor.”

  “Sidney is as unlikely to die a bachelor as I am to discover the Northwest Passage. He is an unfailingly delightful companion—to every girl he meets.” Ophelia handed Sidney his cup. “He was quite smitten with that American heiress at the last ball. Before that, it was the Chilton beauty. Before that…”

  “You must wonder, Sid, how Ophelia can list every woman you’ve ever danced with.” Aidan, chastised for the sandwiches, tossed a tea cake in the air and caught it in his mouth.

  “To see Sidney’s progress through each season’s debutantes requires only a pair of eyes.” Ophelia poured her own cup. “At least he is silly enough to leave them all laughing.”

  “Ah, Phee, you wound me.” Sidney placed a hand on his heart as if on the stage. “All my good deeds count against me. If I dance with each wallflower—as of course one does when there aren’t enough men—then I’m inconstant. If I speak to any miss more than once, then I’m smitten. And, Lord forbid, if one laughs in my company, then I’m silly.”

  “Sidney is clever; that’s different from being silly. Besides, you didn’t criticize that flibbertigibbet Mr. Naylor, who hounded our drawing room all last month.” Kate grimaced. “If he’d fluffed his cravat at me once more, I would have pulled out my scissors and cut it off.”

  “What ever happened to Mr. Naylor?” Ariel looked up over the top of her book.

  Aidan and Tom glanced at each other, then seeing Ophelia watching, both looked away. It told Ophelia all she needed to know.

  “You discouraged him, didn’t you?” Ophelia looked from one sheepish boy to the other. “What if I had liked him? Would you have still encouraged him to find another debutante to annoy?”

  “Saying that Naylor is annoying undercuts your outrage, my dear. First you ask your brother’s help; then, when you discover he has helped you, you chide him. You must be more consistent.” Sidney set his teacup down. “And don’t throw that pillow at me: you know I’m right.”

  “Another reason to remain friends with Sidney.” Ophelia replaced the pillow behind her back. “When I’m feeling murderous, he forces me to hold to my better nature.”

  “Don’t feel too bad, Sid. She won’t have me, either.” Aidan held out his cup for more tea.

  “I would argue, if I may, that I won’t have either of you for very different reasons.” Ophelia poured the last bit of tea into Aidan’s cup.

  “And what are those reasons?” Sidney shifted on his stool to face her.

  Ophelia blushed and looked away. “Well, first, Aidan is four years my junior, and second, as my cousin, he stands as a brother to me, like Tom.”

  “Only more handsome.” Aidan posed his arms as if he were a pugilist.

  “You and Tom are equally handsome,” Ophelia said diplomatically. “You look so much alike that it would be difficult to argue for one of you over the other.”

  “Ah, Phee, where’s your loyalty?” Tom winked at Aidan, then tossed his own tea cake in the air, catching it in his mouth. “Surely you will bestow the title of most handsome on me, your dear brother.”

  “No.” Ophelia shook her head. “I will always think of you both as ill-mannered little boys who play with their food.”

  “I’d hoped Eton would improve their manners.” Judith took the plate of tea cakes and placed it out of reach. “I console myself that once they meet a young woman they wish to impress, they will suddenly discover the proper use of fish forks.”

  “The improper use of fish forks aside, might I pose a question?” Sidney asked, with seeming innocence. “I understand that the thought of marrying your brother, whether it be Aidan or Tom, is unappealing. But as I am not your brother, why am I rejected?”

  Ophelia forced herself not to look at him, at his lips all too inviting. Years before she had made a list of everything that was wrong with Sid as a husband, and whenever she felt herself wavering, she read it again. Lately, she read it almost daily. Today he smelled of chocolate—thick, earthy, delicious chocolate—though she wasn’t sure how. She turned her attention back to the tea service, without answering.

  “Ophelia is uncharacteristically silent, but I know the truth. It’s my ears.” Sidney wagged them back and forth, and Ophelia laughed. “Ben Jonson said that love is deaf, not blind. And I must agree. Ophelia can’t see past the plainness of my face or my embarrassingly large feet. If she could, my skills in persuasion would have already convinced her to put her trust in me.”

  “It’s not his ears or the plainness of his face, and I pay no attention at all to his feet.” Ophelia looked at Sidney with a quickly suppressed pang of longing. “It’s worse than any of those. If I were to marry him, I’d make him a bigamist, for Sidney is already married—to the state. A woman can’t spend her life wondering when her husband might leave his friends
and deign to return for meals or tea.”

  “She has you there, Sid. No one in Whitehall works harder than you.” Tom began to toss his last tea cake into the air, but stopped when Judith glared at him.

  “I didn’t say Sidney works,” Ophelia teased, happy to turn the conversation away from her dilemma. “No, Sidney roams Whitehall, gossiping like a fishwife. He chats with everyone on everything before he leaves for dinner, then he does it all again the next day.”

  “Gossip is the wrong term.” Tom sounded surprisingly stern for a young man who had only moments before been contemplating throwing a tea cake at his cousin. “Some might think that Parliament moves on the speeches of its members, but without Sidney’s good-humored diplomacy there would be far less cooperation between the factions. If you could only see him at work, as Aidan and I have, you would be impressed with his ‘gossip.’”

  Sidney waved away Tom’s concern. “Ophelia imagines that my day in Parliament is equal to a day at a fox hunt or the races. It’s a fault, to be sure, but I forgive her for it.”

  “Tom makes a fine point. To fault Sidney for his effectiveness in Parliament is hardly fair.” Judith checked off each document Tom had signed. “We are finished, Tom.”

  Tom settled back into his chair. “Ophelia, we have helped you. It’s down to those three—and Sidney of course. All good men, known for being even-tempered and industrious. They pay their debts, treat their servants fairly. What more vetting should we do? We made the mistake of telling you Sidney was the best, and look at the good that did.”

  Ophelia smiled, but her stomach twisted. She wanted to rage against the fact that she had to make a decision at all, but instead, she fell silent, abandoned even by Sidney, who typically took her part.

  Sidney, the only one to notice Ophelia’s change of mood, turned tender. He leaned forward, speaking softly where only she could hear. “Since it matters so much to you, Ophelia, I will help.”

  “Do you mean it?” Ophelia felt a strange combination of relief and dismay.

  “Give me until noon to make a plan, and we’ll talk after. I could even venture into the domain of women and come for luncheon?”

  “If you are feeling brave, then, of course,” Ophelia teased. “Few men would attempt such an expedition.”

  “I always feel brave when I have you to champion.” Sidney stared into her eyes, until she looked away.

  At that moment, Millicent Morvis, a hardy woman in her late sixties, with a thick bun of hair streaked with black and grey, entered the room, taking one of the chairs of the duchesse brisée.

  Behind her followed two footman, one carrying several packages.

  Caught lounging on the floor, Aidan, in a single movement, jumped up and landed on the chaise longue between his cousins. Kate jabbed him in the ribs.

  Tom, surrendering his seat behind the desk to Judith, leaned against the fireplace mantel.

  “Ah, I see that Aidan has decimated the sandwiches.” Aunt Millicent directed one footman to remove the tea service and the other to place the packages on the footstool.

  “And the tea cakes,” Kate tattled, then whispered to Aidan, “that’s payment for landing on my hand.”

  “Sorry, pet,” Aidan whispered back.

  “I will be out today until shortly before we must go to the theater. So, we should give Ophelia her birthday presents now,” Millicent said. “Who would like to give the first gift?”

  “My father sends his birthday regards.” Judith held out a half-crown, and Kate and Ariel applauded loudly. “To which my brothers and I add this.” She held out a small round package.

  Ophelia unwrapped the gift. Inside was a long length of green ribbon.

  “It should match your new ball gown,” Judith said.

  “We also thought it would be lovely with your hair,” Aidan said, attempting to make his part in the gift clear.

  “We?” Ophelia raised a single eyebrow.

  “Well, we trusted Judith to choose wisely.” Aidan shrugged. “It’s the almost same thing.”

  “Me next.” Kate held out her reticule, stuffed fat. “I didn’t have wrapping.”

  Ophelia opened the reticule. Inside were a pair of delicately knitted socks. “Judith brought me the wool at Christmas. Mrs. Miller helped me spin the thread. But I only finished knitting them yesterday. It has been devilish hard to work on them without you seeing.”

  “I will love wearing them. They will keep my toes warm this winter.”

  “Now me.” Ariel held out a flat package.

  Inside, Ophelia found a colored drawing of a scene from Shakespeare’s All’s Well that Ends Well. “Oh, Ariel, you copied that Angelica Kaufmann painting I liked at the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery.” She held it up for all to see. “Sidney took us to the last exhibition before the paintings were sold.”

  “I would have bought you an engraving and colored it, but it cost half a pound. Sidney borrowed one for me to copy.”

  “This is perfect, even better than the original. The colors are beautiful,” Ophelia said. “Two lovely presents from my two lovely sisters.”

  “You also have a brother.” Tom carried a gift in a small box to her.

  The box was heavy, and inside was a magnifying glass with an ebony handle. “Oh! Tom! This is too expensive.”

  “Consider it my apology for not vetting your suitors adequately. You can use it to investigate their virtues—or for one of your natural history experiments. I’m sure there’s some bug or leaf that you can discover anew.”

  “My gifts next.” Aunt Millicent pointed to the three gifts on the ottoman. “Start with the large box first, and proceed to the smallest.”

  Inside the large box was a hat, in the latest fashion, with amaranth velvet and blonde lace. The next box held a pair of new slippers from Ophelia’s favorite cobbler, and the smallest box, a pair of new kid gloves, scented with lavender and mint, from Sidney’s grandfather’s perfumery.

  “The hat and slippers will go well with your dress for the Paverset ball,” Judith observed.

  “Thank you, Aunt Millicent. Thank all of you. What delightful, kind gifts.” Ophelia set them all before her on the ottoman. “I can’t remember a better birthday.”

  “You aren’t done yet,” Ariel chided. “You’ve forgotten Sidney.”

  “I haven’t forgotten: Sidney is taking us to Drury Lane tonight to see that new sensation William Betty die beautifully in Douglas.”

  “But I have a gift for you as well. This is the second part of your present, to accompany the tragedy tonight.” Sidney held out a thin book, neatly bound in green leather.

  “Please tell me it’s not one of Shakespeare’s weepy tragedies. I much prefer stage adaptations where everything ends happily.” Ophelia, smiling, skipped the inscription and opened the volume to the title page.

  “I can’t understand how you can prefer a stage adaptation by Charles Kemble or Colley Cibber over legitimate Shakespeare,” Ariel harrumphed. “It ruins the whole tragedy when Cordelia or Desdemona revives to live happily ever after.”

  “Whereas I think it ruins the whole tragedy for those horrible teenagers Romeo and Juliet to die. No, a true tragedy would have them live and, after a year or so of marriage, discover that they despise one another.”

  “That’s my Ophelia—always the pragmatist.” Sidney turned the debate deftly back to the gift itself. “You’ll find it’s a legitimate Shakespeare comedy. No weepy tragedies for you.”

  Ophelia read from the title page. “ A Comedy of Errors. I haven’t read this one.”

  “If Shakespeare had written chemistry books, Ophelia would have read every one twice. Ariel rolled her eyes dramatically. “It’s a story of mistaken identities: two sets of twins separated at birth end up in the same city and are repeatedly mistaken for each other.”

  “Chemistry has an order to it that your sist
er finds appealing.” Sidney intervened. “But as for the play, the two female characters—a wife and her sister—talk about what it means to be rejected, to be jealous, to love. There’s a lovely line about married love: ‘Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine, whose weakness, married to thy stronger state, make me with thy strength to communicate.’”

  “Why must the woman always be the weaker vine?” Ophelia stopped herself from saying more. If she spoke, she might reveal too much.

  “That’s a fair objection. But, to speak in chemical terms, isn’t a good marriage like a catalyst? Its presence transforms both parties.”

  Ophelia felt her cheeks grow warm at Sidney’s attention. She hid her response by examining her book carefully. The binding was a fine morocco leather, the front cover heavily ornamented with swirls tooled in gold.

  “That’s not what happens in A Comedy of Errors.” Ariel shook her head in disapproval of Sidney’s interpretation. “At the end, all the twins end up in the same courtyard, and seeing them causes everyone to realize their mistakes.”

  “Now that Sidney has given me such a beautiful copy, I will read it to discover which of you is correct.” Ophelia traced one perfect gold swirl with her finger. “I will let you know whether love is confusion or catalyst.”

  “A diplomatic answer, my dear.” Aunt Millicent rose from her chair, signaling that breakfast was at an end. “We will continue our celebration of Ophelia’s natal day tonight at Drury Lane, at the gracious invitation of Sidney. Although I know it isn’t the fashionable thing, I wish to be comfortably seated with my lemonade when the performance begins. I expect us to leave for the theater an hour in advance. Does that suit your plans, Sidney?”

  “Of course. An hour in advance, it is.”

  Aunt Millicent made her way from the room, leaving the group to finish their farewells.

  Judith kissed her cousins goodbye, then picked up her portfolio.

  “Judith, my path back to Whitehall takes me very near to your father’s house. Might I escort you?” Sidney held out his arm and Judith took it.