Benvolio is off to settle the boarders into their new home, a roomy suite in his father’s casa.
Walking home through the empty streets of Verona, I am glad to be alone. I could not bear to face Benvolio now. My heart aches, and I am sick with the sense of failure. My inexperience is to blame for Juliet’s death. Had I known more, I might have saved her.
When I return home, my mother is relieved to see me, and I fall into her arms, wanting desperately to be a child again. I lower myself to a damask-covered divan. My mother sits beside me and listens as I explain all that has happened since we were last together at Juliet’s funeral.
“Benvolio loves me,” I say, “and I love him too. ’Tis one of the reasons I am leaving.”
“Leaving?”
“Mother …” my voice is thick. “Mother, what do you think of me?”
Her eyebrows arc upward slightly, and she smiles. “’Tis an odd question.”
“I would very much like to know.”
My mother draws a deep breath. “I think you are … unusual. Aye, thou art most unique, daughter.”
They are but kind ways of saying “strange.”
“I am sorry,” I whisper.
“Whatever for?”
I swipe at a tear that trembles in the corner of my eye. “It cannot be easy to raise a … unique … child.”
“O, it is not easy to raise any sort of child. But I can tell you that bringing up one with a talent and intelligence such as yours has been truly—”
“Difficult?”
“Quite.”
“Exhausting?”
“Mmm, yes.”
“And frustrating?”
“To be sure.”
“Embarrassing?”
“Never!”
“Never?”
My lady smiles and brushes a wisp of hair from my forehead. “Rosaline, my sweet. Don’t you know?”
I search her eyes for the answer. “Know what?”
“That you are a miracle! A miracle of grace and goodness. Aye, you are a difficult, frustrating joy of a daughter. As brave and as bright as thou art beautiful. That God saw fit to give you to me is the thing for which I am most grateful in this world.”
I swallow hard. “Father … he did not feel the same way, apparently.”
“We were very young.” Her eyes go soft, and there is forgiveness in her voice.
We stare into the fire, sharing the silence.
“Every corner of this city echoes with our recent losses,” I say quietly. “I will depart in the morning. For Padua, where I shall devote myself entirely to my studies. ’Twill not erase the bitter failure of Juliet’s death. But mayhap by returning to my resolute path, I shall arm myself against failing again.”
“How canst thou call thy courage failure?”
“Juliet lives no more.” I keep my gaze stern, steady, and address the flames. “What better definition of failure could there be? I have broken my own rules, lady, and now I find I cannot bear to be where Benvolio is. The feud has ceased, aye, but who is to say a new one won’t ignite? How can I know that Benvolio will not one day be injured in a fight, impaled by some malcontent’s sword? Or, e’en if peace reigns eternal, how do I know he will not be consumed by fever or trampled by a startled stallion or struck by lightning or drowned or choked or burned … ?”
“Fie!” My mother frowns. “You are too smart to speak so.”
“I am not smart enough. I am in love. And all love comes to heartache in the end.”
With that, I curl up on the small couch and sob until I fall asleep.
I awaken in the late afternoon, when a knock sounds from the entry. I hear my mother’s maid hurrying to answer the door. Sitting up, I recognize Benvolio’s voice greeting the servant.
Sadness wells up in me, laced with regret.
“Send him away,” I mutter, but ’tis too late. The servant is showing him into the salon and bows herself out of the room.
“Good morrow, beloved. I’ve a surprise for thee.”
Now there comes a noisy commotion from the entry hall. “What in heaven’s name?”
I turn to see Benvolio’s father lingering near the door. He seems to be concealing something ungainly behind him, and he is smiling like a little boy!
“Come here!” Benvolio commands in a firm voice.
“Benvolio!” I chide, in spite of my grief “Do not speak to your father in such a manner.”
“I was not speaking to my father. His tone softens when he repeats, “Come here.”
There is the clicking noise of dulled claws on marble tiles. The heaviness in my heart lifts, and I cry out, “Crab!”
At the sound of his name, the dog appears from behind Benvolio’s lord, scampers across the entry hall, and bounds into the salon. In the next second, the mutt has leapt onto the divan and is lolling in my lap.
“Hello! Hello, you beautiful dog, you!”
Benvolio reaches down to scratch Crab’s ears. “Seems being a hero agrees with the pooch.”
Crab barks his agreement.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Benvolio’s father quietly taking his leave. Benvolio strokes his thumb gently across my cheek, then nudges Crab away so that he may sit beside me on the divan. He kisses me softly, then again, and I accept the warmth of his lips greedily.
After some time, he leans away and studies me, tracing my chin, touching my hair.
“Dost thou know how proud you make me, Rosaline?”
I can only manage a whisper. “Thank you.”
“And ’tis not just your incomparable beauty,” he amends quickly. “’Tis your sweetness, your unselfish desire to give to those who are in need. And of course, there is that boundless intelligence of yours.”
Benvolio hesitates, then goes down on one knee. Ribbons of sunlight shimmer in his hair.
“Now, then,” he says, with a small, silky smile, “as I find I am too impatient to await the moonlight, I suppose the glow of sunset will do just as nicely. We have just enjoyed a wealth of kisses, and here I find myself on bended knee …”
My eyes go wide as I recall his words the morning we awoke in the grove.
“All that is missing, it seems, is the unusually large gemstone I spoke of, but hold, what have we here?”
From a pocket sewn into the lining of his tunic, he withdraws a small, glistening thing. “Well, what dost thou know.” His smile broadens. “I just happen to be in possession of such a jewel after all.” He lifts it into a pale streamer of sunlight, and I see that it is a ring, and it does indeed contain a diamond of uncommonly grand proportions.
I can only gape at it.
“Marry me, Rosaline,” he says in a trembling whisper. “Marry me.”
My heart swells, my knees quiver.
My answer is a single word.