Charming Ophelia

by Rachael Miles

  “But that’s hours away.” Ophelia settled herself next to her cousin.

  “Once they heard that Mrs. Barnard and her daughters were to attend, they were anxious to make the trip, and given that Father has required it of Tom, I felt unable to object.”

  “I suppose one can’t blame them: the eldest Barnard girl has a bilious character. I once saw her leave the dance floor in a huff because her partner circled left instead of right.”

  “Well, I gave them my best advice: avoid all dependent country misses, lest they find themselves engaged to a fortune hunter.”

  “That sounds more like your father than you.”

  “Perhaps.” Judith leaned back against the carriage wall. “But I’m grateful for their absence. I wanted to ask about Sidney.”

  Ophelia groaned. “Not you too.”

  “We are both practical women. A suitor with good looks eventually transforms into a husband with a grey beard and a bald pate. And an agreeable temperament before marriage often turns curmudgeonly after. We know that it’s the quality of the match that matters: how well-settled, how well-fed, and how well-provided for the woman and her children will be. With Sid, the quality of the match is assured, both from his family’s perfumery and from his own ventures into soap.”

  “I’ve been considering what you told me. But I’m still uncertain how to choose.”

  “But then you have the added advantage that Sidney is kindness itself, and he dotes on you. That and the money makes him somewhat irresistible.”

  “I’ll concede that he is unfailingly kind, but he’s unfailingly kind to everyone. As for him doting, he treats me no differently than he does any other young woman. At any dinner or ball, he spends most of his time introducing me to other men and leaving me to dance with other women.”

  “But he spends every afternoon in your drawing room. Perhaps he leaves you alone at balls because he wants you to weigh all your possible choices, meet all the eligible and not-so-eligible men so that, if you choose him, he’ll know it’s because you want him, not because you have no other options. Unless I misjudge him badly, he will be heartbroken if you choose someone else.”

  The carriage slowed, and Judith gathered her reticule. “Ah, we are already here. As a married woman, I will be in the gaming room beating Lady Pilkington at whist. But remember, Ophelia, the Paverset ball is on Saturday, and Father arrives on Sunday. That gives you five days to announce a decision.”

  * * * *

  “It’s difficult to imagine anyone more lovely than you, my dear Miss Gardiner,” Lord Johns said. His speech slurred slightly as he lifted his glass toward her. He leaned in, and Ophelia felt his breath as a pox on her neck. Too close, too drunk. “I do believe this is my dance. Third after dinner.” His hand rubbed an uncomfortable circle in her elbow.

  “Sorry, old chap. You’ve miscounted. This is the fourth dance, mine.” Sidney appeared from nowhere, smiling as he took her arm.

  “But I’m sure this is three.” Johns looked puzzled.

  “No. The first was a minuet, the second a contredanse, and the third, just finished, a reel. This is the Duke of Kent’s waltz. It’s shame you missed your chance. Perhaps Miss Gardiner will be available Saturday at Lady Paverset’s rout. I’m quite sure the rest of her dances this evening are already promised. Is that true, Miss Gardiner?”

  “Why, yes. I’m afraid I have, Lord Johns. But perhaps at Lady Paverset’s. Something early in the evening when we are both fresh.”

  “Yes, yes, I suppose that will have to do. I was certain this was the third.”

  “Shame, really, Johns.” Aidan’s older brother, Benjamin Somerville, appeared at Sidney’s elbow, summoned (Ophelia was certain) by Sidney, “But this gives me a chance to talk about that horse you have for sale.”

  Lord Johns’s face brightened. “Why, yes, she’s an excellent filly.”

  Sidney led her out on the floor, and they waited in position for the song to begin.

  “You do realize this was Johns’s dance. There was no minuet. The set began with the contredanse.”

  “He’s too far in his cups to realize. Besides, you looked as if you would prefer not to dance with him.”

  “I’m sure I gave no such indication. It would be terrible manners.”

  “You toy with the tip of your glove when you are trying to be polite.”

  “I do?” Ophelia looked down at her hand. The tip of her glove was pulled out from the fingertip and flattened. “I’ve always wondered why I have to mend that finger more often than the others.”

  “Now you know.”

  The music began, a slow rhythmic waltz. Unlike the others, it allowed her to remain with one partner, turning and turning again, facing each other, then facing away.

  Sid was a masterful dancer: light on his feet, always aware of the other dancer’s positions.

  Each time their hands met, she felt an unexpected shimmer of excitement.

  “After this, it’s time for me to beat you at cards,” Sidney said.

  “I can beat you at cards in my drawing room. Why should I miss the rest of the dancing?”

  “Because Lady Bentley is playing, and not only does she gossip, but she loses when she does. It’s two forms of entertainment in one. Besides, if you remain here, you risk Johns finding someone who has counted the dances correctly. Somerville can’t entertain him forever.”

  * * * *

  “What have we learned tonight, Mr. Mason?” Ophelia breathed in the cool evening air on the terrace. She loved discovering what Sid heard in the seemingly mindless chatter of the gambling tables.

  “That I should make a very low offer on Parker’s Kensington estate. It’s fine land, much neglected.”

  “How did you determine that?”

  “Let’s see. In the first set, Barton told the story of a rich industrialist who left all his money to his butler and housekeeper, disappointing the hopes of some very distant relations. In the third set, when Lady Horner joined our table, she lamented that her ‘dear Morona’ had decided to remove to the colonies after some difficulties. Now Morona is Horner’s daughter’s husband’s uncle’s third wife’s cousin. But we use the word cousin loosely here. In actuality, he is one of the bastard children of Lord Markley by his mistress some twenty years ago. That mistress was herself the disinherited daughter of Mr. Abercromby, who married after some years…”

  “Stop.” She held up a hand. “I haven’t a head for all those connections.”

  “The problem isn’t your perfectly luscious head, but rather that you and your sisters live so much out of society. When you are in society more frequently, knowing who is related to whom is easy.”

  “For you.”

  “For anyone willing to listen and pay attention to details.”

  “That would be only you.”

  “Would you like to ride to Kensington with me to see the estate before I make an offer on it? We could take your sisters with us for good company,” Sidney said. “And once there, we could investigate your next suitor. He lives in Kensington, if you remember.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “That would be perfect. Aunt Millicent is leaving in the morning to visit a sick friend in Bath. She’ll be gone until Friday.”

  “Then I will pick the lot of you up at noon,” Sidney grinned. “You needn’t bring your next box. I’ll provide you with a new costume once we arrive there.”

  * * * *

  “I’m still surprised that Kate and Ariel agreed to participate in this scheme.” Ophelia looked at her sisters having a picnic under a large oak tree some distance away. The girls sat near the river’s edge on the other side of the low stone wall that encircled the churchyard.

  “You can see them. They can see you. And we can see your suitor when he arrives.”

  “Well? Do I look like a gra
vedigger?” Ophelia gestured at her costume, a country laborer’s long smock frock, with leather knee breeches and gaiters.

  Sidney reached into a pile of fresh dirt and rubbed some on her face and hands. He pulled her laborer’s hat down low over her ears, then handed her a shovel. “You look like a man who has spent his day in the dirt. Ah, here he comes. Look as if you have begun digging another grave.”

  Burchby, an angular man soberly dressed in old clothes, approached a nearby grave with a child at his side. The little boy held a bouquet of posies. Behind them, a young woman with a pretty face followed, watching Burchby with intent sympathy.

  Burchby knelt down, removing a bunch of faded flowers from the grave. The young woman stepped forward quickly, taking the spent flowers from his hand. “Place the flowers on your mother’s grave, son. ”

  “Do you think Mama will like these flowers better than last week’s? ” The five-year-old boy, neatly dressed, carefully set the flowers in the middle of the gravestone under his mother’s name.

  “Every week! He visits the graveside every week,” Ophelia whispered.

  “Yes, he, with and without the child, has brought flowers every week since she was buried.”

  “But that’s two years gone.”

  “Yes.” Sidney’s tone was sad and kind. “He loved her a great deal.”

  “I suppose that should be no secret to me. He told me he lost her too soon and that he still misses her.”

  “And that admission didn’t give you pause?”

  “I found it sweet.” Ophelia watched Burchby brush the leaves from around the headstone, carefully avoiding the flowers, then rise. He stared unmoving at the grave for some moments. Eventually the boy returned to the young woman’s side. She pulled him into her body, resting her hand on his narrow shoulders. The two stood silently, as Burchby revisited his grief.

  “And you didn’t wish for that sort of devotion yourself.”

  “I thought perhaps he might feel the same way about me, given time. That he was able to love so deeply spoke well of his heart. Who is the young woman?”

  “Her name is Eleanor Murray. She and his wife were girlhood friends. When Sarah Burchby fell ill, Eleanor came to care for her and manage the house. A spinster with no income or family, Eleanor remained after Sarah’s death to care for the boy. His name is George.”

  “Strange. He never told me their names, just ‘my departed wife’ and ‘my son.’”

  Eleanor touched George’s head, smoothing his unruly hair, all the time her eyes never leaving Burchby.

  “She loves him—and the boy.”

  “Yes. But she is a dependent, with no portion, no dowry.”

  “The Burchby I know wouldn’t care about such a thing. He must not realize.”

  “Apparently his lost love blinds him to the possibilities before him.”

  Seeing Burchby brush a tear from his cheek, Eleanor led the boy away, finding a series of objects to entertain him: a flat rock, a crop of daisies, and finally a fallen bird’s nest. Sidney watched Ophelia watch the child.

  “It was a risk to show me this. What if I find the idea of caring for that sweet little boy appealing?”

  “Then I have miscalculated badly.” Frustrated, Sidney stuck his shovel into the ground, lifting the dirt into a growing pile behind them. He hadn’t convinced her, not yet, and his opportunities for doing so were slipping away. He needed better words, powerful words to convince her that he was her best choice. But nothing he could think of conveyed how good a marriage to him could be. He continued digging, rejecting his options like the dirt he threw into the pile.

  Burchby turned away from the grave, followed by his son and Eleanor. When the trio were well in the distance, Sidney stopped digging.

  “We’ve talked about your suitors, but we haven’t talked about your desires or your hopes.” Sidney put his shovel against a nearby tree. “What do you want in a marriage, Ophelia?”

  “I hate it when you say my whole name.” Ophelia put her shovel next to his. “I always think you are disapproving when you won’t call me Phee.”

  “Phee as a diminutive is lovely for some occasions, but you are more than a diminutive.” Sidney welcomed the chance to explain how he saw her. “You are Ophelia, the heroine of that Spanish chap’s Arcadia. In Greek, your name, Ophelos, means succor or help.”

  “I prefer that to Shakespeare’s mad woman.” Ophelia walked toward her sisters. “A more pitiable creature was never written.”

  “No, Shakespeare’s Ophelia is nothing like you.” Sidney followed, knowing he had only the time it took to cross the churchyard to sway her. “You are not one to mope about after a man you can’t have or who doesn’t want you. I can’t imagine you standing at a river’s edge, considering the best way to do yourself in.”

  “You can’t?” Ophelia shook her head in disbelief, but continued walking.

  Sidney groaned inwardly. That day. Again. “I think that day stands at the root of all our trouble. The woman I saw covered with mud and anger was not Shakespeare’s wounded suicide. She was a beautiful, strong, courageous woman who wanted nothing more than to drown the bastard who had wronged her. If I were an astronomer, I would name a star after you or perhaps a comet, something that would blaze in glory across the sky.” Sidney’s eyes sought hers, holding her gaze until she looked away. She remained silent, and Sidney felt his heart drop into his stomach.

  “If you are naming something after me,” Ophelia offered softly, “I would prefer a moon.”

  “Why? A star shines with its own light. Just as you do.” Sidney spoke quickly, earnestly. “A moon simply reflects the light of others. No, Ophelia, you are a star.”

  “I’d rather be a moon,” Ophelia insisted, leaving the churchyard. In the distance, Kate waved.

  “You certainly cause madness in men.” Sidney felt his moment passing him by. “Or at least this man.”

  “Stop it, Sidney.” Ophelia turned to face him, frustration and something else playing across her face. “I know you haven’t seriously considered what marriage to me would be like. You simply find me comfortable like an old sweater or a favorite pipe.”

  “There is nothing comfortable about you, Ophelia.” Sidney laughed with surprise. “You are infuriating, stubborn, devious, and hardheaded. And altogether delightful.”

  “Everyone else thinks I’m agreeable,” Ophelia rebutted, somewhat petulantly.

  “That’s because you only let them see the agreeable side of your nature. But it’s not all of you. And I want to marry all of you, all the messy, irresistible, bits of you. I want the part of you who sneaks a blanket out to the barn cat’s bed when you think no one will notice, so that her kittens can have a soft place to lie. I want the part of you who takes over the gardener’s shed to replicate the chemical experiments she’s read about in books.”

  “Do you want the part of me that set the shed on fire?” Ophelia challenged him, but her voice had lost some of its edge.

  “Yes. I want all of it. All of those parts in one great big complicated jumble of kind intentions and devious wit.”

  “No one else thinks of me that way.” She looked at him carefully, as if she were seeing him for the first time.

  “No one pays attention to you as I do.” Sidney waited, hoping she finally understood.

  Ophelia shook the dirt off her hands. “I shall wash my face and hands in the river, then change back into my clothes in the carriage.”

  Sidney’s heart deflated, but he forced himself to take her change of subject in stride. “Of course. I’ll collect a towel from the carriage.”

  * * * *

  On the way back to London, the group outlined the merits and demerits of the manor they’d visited in Kensington, with the three Gardiner sisters agreeing that he should make an offer on it. The “perfect house,” Ariel declared, though he wished Ophelia had be
en the one to say it. At their London home, the younger girls ran ahead into the house, while Ophelia stood at the carriage, clearly uneasy.

  “Have you decided?” Sidney forced himself to ask, not wanting her answer.

  “Not yet. But I promise, when I decide, you will be the first to know.”

  “Not Tom or your sisters?”

  “No, you have been so solicitous, taking me to all sorts of places a well-bred young woman should likely avoid.” She paused, seeming to just stop herself from pulling the glove from the tip of her forefinger.

  His heart felt hollow. She was being polite. Somehow after all he’d shown her, she was going to choose someone else. But who?

  “You’ve made quite an argument this week for why I shouldn’t marry each one of the men,” Ophelia resumed, her voice flat, unreadable.

  “I wasn’t making an argument,” Sidney objected, helplessly.

  “Of course you were. You showed me that Hambenth loves his mistress and that no marriage to him would rise above a business arrangement. Though I might gain his affection, Hambenth’s heart would always be with her. Today, you showed me that Burchby is still in love with his dead wife, and that his child’s caretaker, his wife’s friend, loves him and the child. If I marry either man, I stand in the way of love.”

  “Have you decided against them?”

  “Hatch is more difficult,” Ophelia continued, ignoring his question. “Certainly, his estate is well managed, and his servants are well fed and happy. But his adherence to the law, even when he believes the law is cruel, is a bit too…”

  “Callous.”

  “Yes, callous.”

  “Then will you begin again next year?”

  “I need time to think, and it’s entirely too difficult to decide when you are constantly underfoot. I come down to breakfast, and you are there. I take a walk in the park, and you are there. I go to a ball, and you are there. I walk in the garden…”

  “I’m rarely in your garden.”

  “Yes, but from the garden, I can see your room. It’s all too easy to imagine you standing at your bedroom window, watching me.”

  “Perhaps I’m simply enjoying your garden. Mine isn’t nearly so nice.”