Day 10 #2
charming:
But I am wrapped in glamour and should not be visible to mortal eyes.
andrews:
And yet my poet’s eyes detect visions hid from other men. Now that I behold your splendor, nothing else in this world can interest me.
charming:
Really? Do you mean it, colonel?
andrews:
I . . . uh . . .
charming:
Because I think you’re the bee’s cheese too!
andrews:
Well, I . . . Nothing else in this world can interest me . . . Ahem.
This kerfuffle veered off script for some time, with Mrs. Wattlesbrook whispering line prompts until Miss Charming got back on course.
“And now, Mr. Nobley, your death scene,” came Mrs. Wattlesbrook’s stage whisper.
Mr. Nobley acted out tripping and impaling himself on the prop sword.
Miss Heartwright, distraught by his mortal wound and still fairy-dusted to be in love with him, grabbed his sword and mimed impaling herself as well.
She fell to the floor dead but quickly realized that she had dropped too close to Mr. Nobley and would be in the way of his next scene.
And so, still in stiff corpse pose, she rolled herself away, steamrolling through the battery-powered kerosene lamps in her path.
Nobley snorted as he fell onto his back, and Jane frolicked to his side.
Old Jane would’ve blushed self-consciously, but New Jane decided to feel as enchanting as Miss Charming.
In the game spirit of a kindergarten pageant, she really did try to deliver her lines with skill and passion, but she kept having to press her lips together to keep in a laugh.
She placed Nobley’s head on her lap, took a deep breath, and tried again.
jane:
My friend, my lord, my love, is this a mortal wound? Hear me howl with despair!
nobley:
Go ahead then. I’d like to hear you howl.
jane:
Oh, um . . . HOOOOOWWWL!
nobley:
Most effective. And now, my life is used up, and I am near to my last breath.
Oh! Jane thought sadly. She knew it was pretend—of course she knew—but in that moment, an arrow of ice seemed to enter her heart at the thought of losing this man.
Barely audible, a servant in the audience muttered, “For the love of god, how much longer is this?”
Jane and Nobley both curled forward, incapacitated again by uncontrollable laughter.
Jane really tried to hold it in—if Wattlesbrook kicked her out for the phone, would breaking on stage earn similar condemnation?
—but every time she heard Nobley’s little strangled gasps of suppressed chortles, it kicked up her own.
She covered her face with her hands and tried to breathe.
When at last she didn’t feel assaulted by laughs, she lowered her hands and found Nobley looking up at her, inches from her face, his recent laugh still bending his mouth into a smile.
And he spoke his dying line.
nobley:
I yearned for heroics and bloodshed, but now that the only blood shed is my own, my heart is free to feel for the first time. And what it yearns for is . . . you. I—
He took a breath, and then, “I love you.”
An inhaled breath froze in her throat. Her heart battered against her corset.
It’d been the essence of his line, though simplified, and stripped of similes and farms and rain and moon and all, it pierced her.
Nobley’s eyes, no longer laughing, were gazing up at her.
At her and into her. Into her eyes as though he couldn’t bear to look away.
The delicious curl in his smile melted, as if he had startled himself with the words, as if they had come to his lips unprepared and unbidden.
How, in the middle of all this silliness, while speaking cliché lines, did this feel like the most real moment in all of Austenland?
Jane put a hand on his face, acting out her character comforting a dying soldier.
But it was still Jane’s hand. And it was still Nobley’s face.
She touched a laugh tear leaking from the corner of his eye.
Her fingers lightly grazed his temple, down his cheek, across the short whiskers on his chin, her thumb stopping just below his lower lip.
She thought she felt his body shiver under her hand, though perhaps not in laughter.
She no longer battled her own laugh. All her energy went into keeping her body from leaning forward those few inches and meeting his mouth with hers.
A cleared throat in the audience startled Jane out of this moment.
In the front row, Aunt Saffronia, who’d been laughing encouragingly during the parts that were supposed to be sad and clapping gleefully whenever a new character came onstage, cleared her throat again, as though intensely uncomfortable.
Colonel Andrews whispered, “Charming, my pet, this is the part where you heal him.”
And Miss Charming whispered loudly, “Oh right! I forgot what I was doing. Those two kinda looked like they were gonna tackle each other.” She skipped back onto the stage, her wings shimmying.
charming:
Surprise! ’Tis I, your fairy queen.
Why so much death? Oops, not ag-een!
When her hand went for the glitter pouch, Nobley raised his own in a defensive posture.
nobley:
No! Not that stuff. Er . . . You are so powerful, fairy queen, surely you can just heal me? Without the glitter?
charming:
I guess so. Boom, you’re healed. And I guess you, too, Heartwreck.
heartwright:
Death undoes the fairy curse, and as my soul returns from across the river Styx, I recognize the face of my soulmate. This kindly shepherd holds my heart.
east:
I cheer . . . and something—something. Er, huzzah!
jane:
My love was wreathed in the robes of war, but returns to me in peace.
east:
My love was run through with my enemy’s sword, but returns to me whole.
andrews:
My love is a fairy queen who meant no harm but accidentally contributed to the tragic deaths of both your loves.
As the action wrapped up, the six players stood side by side facing their long-suffering audience. Jane’s line was first, but she paused, not quite ready for it to be over. She felt Nobley’s hand reach for hers and give her a reassuring squeeze. His warmth flooded her, and she smiled.
jane (trying to sound actress-y ):
At last, we are all truly happy.
charming (while hopping happily):
Yes indeedy!
heartwright (with a glittery cough ):
Our woes are ended.
east (straight-up reading from his script ):
We can rest peacefully in each other’s arms.
andrews (as always, with panache!):
And no matter where we may roam . . .
nobley (with a sigh ):
This will always be our home . . . [a second sigh, as if hoping to be saved from speaking any more words of this wretched theatrical ] . . . by the sea.
And, silence as the audience waited for who knows what: A better ending line? A better play? Colonel Andrews cleared his throat, and Jane inclined her head in a hurried curtsy.
“Oh,” Aunt Saffronia said, and started the applause. The audience clapped sporadically, and the cast bowed, Miss Charming giggling.
Mr. Nobley let go of Jane’s hand, and she immediately mourned the loss of that warmth, but she resisted reaching back for him.
The play was over. She no longer had her character’s actions as an excuse to touch him.
Instead, she squinted past the lamps to get her first good look at the audience, now that stage fright couldn’t prickle her.
Aunt Saffronia, beaming. Mrs. Wattlesbrook, looking for all the world like a proud schoolmarm.
Matilda, bored, and a dozen other servants, equally bored.
And that must have been Martin. He was in the back, and the room was dark, but no one else was that tall.
Imagining the spectacle from his eyes, she saw anew how ridiculous that little play had been, and how all of Pembrook Park must seem so to him—the false lines, the feigned exclamations of love.
Artifice. Pretense. Lies. Schoolgirl daydreams.
Jane took a step away from Mr. Nobley.
“Well, my dears, what a show. Quite professional!” Aunt Saffronia said, rushing their little stage.
Mrs. Wattlesbrook was right behind her. A barrage of compliments engulfed the cast, and Jane smiled and nodded and smiled.
She was conscious of Martin moving up, standing behind Mrs. Wattlesbrook, gesturing to Jane.
Such a towering presence was difficult to ignore. She ignored him.
“Uh, Miss Erstwhile?” he said quietly. He sounded a little desperate.
Aunt Saffronia was plunging the profound intricacies of the script. Mrs. Wattlesbrook half turned to glare at Martin.
“Miss Erstwhile?” he said again, sounding a little braver.
Jane met his gaze dead-on. Martin blinked, smiled hopefully, and opened his mouth to speak again.
What did he have to do with her? She was trying—for Aunt Carolyn, for herself, for her darling Mr. Darcy—she was trying to live this, and Martin’s presence had the effect of shining a light on how shallow it all was, besides reminding her of every guy who had ever tossed her aside.
She was having a grand time, and his judgment was souring the punch.
She turned her shoulder to him and addressed Mr. Nobley.
“Thank you, sir. Thus far the highlight of my stay has been making love to you.”
Mr. Nobley bowed in acknowledgment. The conversation completely quieted. Jane thought she detected Martin sort of slump his shoulders.
“Well, good night, all,” Jane said, and made a quick getaway to her room . . .
. . . where she lay on her bed, stared at her canopy, and wished that encounter didn’t stick to her still, that she could just scrape it off her shoe. What would Martin have said if she’d let him speak? No, never mind, these things never end well.
Wait, there was something good, coiling on the edge of her memory . . . Ah yes, Mr. Nobley had smiled at her. Had held her hand. And maybe, he’d wanted to kiss her too. She closed her eyes and held to that almost-kiss as she would to the tatters of a really great dream in the waking gray of dawn.