Chapter Nine #2
Miss Jarvis’s uncovered eye widened to its maximum, an O repeated in the shape of her mouth.
Whatever Mr. Hearne claimed he could picture, she was, after all, a spinster on the wrong side of five-and-thirty, and how could it possibly be dignified or appropriate for her to gallop about, thus accoutered?
And as for caressing an ass’s head—foh! As animals went, she was not even particularly fond of lapdogs!
“Thank you, Miss Barstow,” she answered Frances briskly. “Your offer is generous, but I had better ‘bear those ills I have, than fly to others’ such as you describe.”
“Or such as Mr. Hearne describes!” corrected Frances, studying that man with a beady eye.
For a nincompoop, he showed remarkable agility in managing others, first revealing the emptiness of Peter’s scorn, and then talking Miss Jarvis out of exchanging roles.
And how he had put it! Did that mean he thought she, Frances Barstow, wanted to caper and frolic and glitter and kiss ass’s heads?
“Speaking of the ass’s head,” Mrs. Eveleigh tactfully turned the subject, “how is such a thing to be made?”
“Oh, does Hearne require a manufactured one?” asked Mr. Tilson dryly, drawing another round of disapproving looks, but there was no denying poor Mr. Hearne was again blinking at them all in the stupidest way possible.
“Perhaps a wicker basket, with squirrel fur attached?” Maria suggested. “We could fashion long ears out of wires and cover them with fur as well.”
“But how will he see?” asked Frances. “Puck cannot simply cram such a thing upon his head and expect him to carry on.”
“We might cut holes for his eyes and mouth.”
“Or just cut out the front of the basket and have Mr. Hearne wear a fencer’s mask,” was Gordon’s proposal. “The wire would be the same color as the squirrel fur, or near enough.”
“That might work,” his sister agreed. “But we will let Sarah decide. She’s clever about such things.”
After that day’s dinner (with Frances again beside Mr. Tilson), Mr. Midgecomb as their acting manager took it upon himself to read various speeches from the play to them, while sharing his advice.
“Why don’t you and Miss Eveleigh take a turn reading the scene between Hermia and Helena, Miss Jarvis? You will see some of it will come naturally, as, like the two characters, you and Miss Eveleigh have a long history as cousins and friends.”
Frances thought this an unfortunate way to put it, as Hermia and Helena spent so much of the play fighting over gentlemen’s attentions, but Miss Jarvis seized on his offer with alacrity, her hand fluttering to her hair and the patch over her eye.
Jane’s mother, too, thought this a splendid idea and called for additional candle lamps.
Jane herself only shot Frances a look which meant, You see Mama’s artfulness?
“I only wish everyone might not listen while we make this first attempt,” murmured Miss Jarvis, and instantly Mrs. Eveleigh asked Maria to play some music for them so that the rest of the company might turn politely away.
“We did not have the pleasure of hearing you play yesterday, Miss Maria. Would you be so kind…? Mr. Denver might turn the music for you.”
This suggestion caused unhappiness in two hearts, for Maria had not practiced overmuch lately, and George Denver had never been called on before to perform such a task and began this first attempt by tripping over a corner of the carpet and stumbling against the instrument.
However, they soon got under way, Maria wisely keeping to country airs.
If they were discouraged from attending the reading, a second evening of music could hardly hold the boys’ attention, and Gordon and Peter started a game of piquet, Mr. Tilson drawn irresistibly to watch over their shoulders.
Frances, too, had heard Maria’s offerings on countless occasions, but she had had the foresight to bring her netting box to Greenwood Hall, from which she now drew forth the green stocking purse she had admittedly been working on for months.
Mr. Eveleigh read a book, while his wife sewed, one eye always on Jane’s progress.
That left only Mr. Hearne to sit like a tailor’s block in a shop window sporting the season’s fashion.
At home Frances would loop the end of her net purse around the leg of a heavy, marble-topped table to secure it, but the furniture in the Greenwood Hall drawing room tended toward the light and ornamental, and she could hardly lift an end of the sofa to fasten it to a foot.
With a grimace she chose a cushion to pin it to, only to have it pop free at the first tug.
“May I assist you, Miss Barstow?” asked Mr. Hearne, retrieving the pin from the carpet. “I am very good at sitting still and maintaining a firm grasp on items.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
Looking more like a tailor’s block than ever, Mr. Hearne perched on the other end of the sofa from her, looped the end of the purse about his forefinger, and then closed his hand in a fist.
Frances gave him an uncomfortable smile before taking up her needle and mesh stick again.
It was not so easy to begin, however, not only because of his nearness but also because she had to think very hard to remember the order of steps.
Was it through—over—around—under—through, or was it through—under—around—through—around?
If I don’t pull the knots too tightly, I can always unwind them later, she reassured herself.
“Is it a fishing net, Miss Barstow?” he asked after some minutes, when she had at last recalled the pattern. “Or is it to catch rabbits?”
“Neither, Mr. Hearne. It is a purse.”
“A purse,” he repeated. “A purse.”
These were hardly scintillating flashes of wit, and Frances was not inclined to continue the conversation, but after another pause he said, “‘Crowns in my purse I have, and goods at home, and so am come abroad to see the world.’”
Frances’ head lifted sharply. “Where did that come from?”
He blinked in that maddening manner which made her want to poke him in the eyes. “That? Oh, that’s from The Taming of the Shrew. When he comes to ‘wive it wealthily’ in Padua.”
Even had Adam Hearne truly been a blockhead, he might have suspected by this juncture that Miss Frances Barstow thought little of him.
But not being blockheaded at all, he knew it for a fact, and her low opinion of his intellect somehow piqued rather than pleased him.
It was out of this pique that he quoted Shakespeare, though he would shake his head over it later.
It was Frances’ turn to blink. She had never seen Shrew performed, and the play was not a favorite among the Barstow ladies. What was that overbearing husband character named? Something like Pistachio.
“I meant, sir, how did you come to think of it?”
“The purse, of course.”
Asking him questions would get her nowhere, apparently. She whipped through another knot.
“When you told me that things which went into your head remained there, I had no notion so many of those things were Shakespeare.”
“I like him,” he said simply. “Don’t you?”
“I do. You must read and…teach him a great deal.”
“Yes.”
Another knot. And another.
“You must study the texts very hard,” she ventured, “to have verses at your fingertips. Do you wish Mr. Midgecomb had assigned you a smaller part?”
“No, indeed. I like Bottom. It would be harder to play two entirely different people like so many of you must. And I will get to wear the fur-covered basket!”
The final chords of “The Banks of Banna” sounded, and the company paused in their activities to applaud and compliment Maria, while George scrabbled up the next sheet of music.
Waiting until her sister launched anew into “Their Groves o' Sweet Myrtle,” Frances returned to the conversation. “But are you not alarmed by the many speeches you must memorize, Mr. Hearne?”
“It will be a hard job,” he admitted. Ducking his chin, he looked almost shyly at her from under his long, beautiful lashes. “Would you help me learn them, Miss Barstow?”
Frances dropped her netting needle and fumbled to pick it up.
“I? We only have the one scene together.” And what a scene!
She colored just to think of it. But as anyone who has been asked for aid knows, the mere fact of the request confers an obligation.
To refuse is no neutral act, but rather a considered rejection of the other.
Therefore, when he made no reply, only lifting his beautiful brow in entreaty, she heard herself say, “Very well.”