Massonville 1897
The ground seemed to fall from under Ophelia's feet. She stepped back behind the hedge, not wanting to be seen. Or perhaps she did not want to see. Words and phrases half remembered and dimly understood raced into her mind: “Greek Love,” “Charlotte Anne,” and “Sister Boy.” She remembered hearing about an actor who always traveled with the same dresser—a younger man—and she could see in her mind the raised eyebrows and knowing smiles that accompanied both names.
But none of that has anything to do with Edward! It can't!
Everyone knew those words and looks were reserved for effeminate, womanish men, and he was not that.
Yet she knew what she had seen. Or did she? Had she mistaken it? She forced herself to step out from behind the hedge and look again at the bench. The two men were closer together now. Jonathan reached out his hand to touch Edward, and Ophelia could sense how much Edward—her Edward—wanted that hand to caress him. She remembered the way Edward had distanced himself from her in the last few weeks, and she remembered the look on his face when he listened to Jonathan tell his stories. She remembered the connection between Edward and Jonathan when they acted together on the stage. She watched with an aching heart as Edward's face came within inches of Jonathan's hand.
Then, abruptly, Edward pulled back. Jonathan began talking. Ophelia couldn't hear his words, but she could see the intensity between the men as Edward began to shake his head harder and harder. Jonathan reached out again, and this time Edward jumped to his feet and started running away from the bench. Now she could hear Jonathan calling after him. She ducked back behind the hedge as Edward approached the gate. It wasn't a good hiding place, and under normal circumstances he would have seen her, but as he raced past her, Ophelia saw the same blind fear in his eyes that was in them when he played the last act of The Prince of Zanzona.
Ophelia was not one given to hysteria. When you owned a repertory theater, you learned not to give in to such emotions in the face of calamity. So she didn't run after Edward. She waited until he was safely out of the way, looked back into the garden to see that Jonathan was still there, and then she went back to the office in the opera house. She continued working, and she did not weep all day long. Her tears didn't start until the moment after the evening's performance, when Edward asked her to marry him.
Ophelia cried because she knew how happy she would have been if he had proposed the day before, or that morning, or anytime before she'd watched him sitting on the bench in the garden with Jonathan. She didn't sob out loud, but she couldn't stop the tears. Edward, who always saw everything, didn't seem to notice. He looked down at his hands and said, “If you would marry me, you would make me so very happy.”
What he is really saying is, “Please save me.”
But then she began to doubt again, as she had when she'd stood at the garden gate. She was young, and there were many things she didn't understand. And what if she was right and he was asking her to save him? Why not? She loved him—at least she could finally admit that—so why not save him from a life of disgrace and depravity? Why not keep him from being a man whose name brought raised eyebrows and sniggers? He was still her dearest Edward, who was brilliant and kind, and he cared for her more than anyone ever had. But did he care? She had felt that he did, but she had no basis for comparison. She wanted to curse her own innocence.
There was no one she could talk to. Horatio probably could have answered her questions, but she couldn't betray Edward in that way. Horatio had watched her blossoming romance with his usual cynicism. “Your Edward is a bit too perfect for my taste,” he'd said one night when he and Ophelia were alone in the apartment. “Never trust a man who seems to have no vices, my dear. He will always have at least one secret one. And it will be vile.” No, she could never discuss any of this with Horatio.
Edward was still looking down at his hands. Her silence was becoming insulting. Wasn't there some kind of socially acceptable phrase she was supposed to recite in this situation? Something about being aware of the great compliment he had bestowed upon her? No, that was a line from a play she had appeared in once. And she didn't know whether she wanted to accept or reject him.
“I'm sorry,” she finally said. “I need some time.”
He nodded without looking up at her. “I understand,” he said. Then he turned and walked away.