A Dark Lady
Phyllis Baxter very nearly walked past the Servant's Hall and straight up the stairs to bed. Although her day hadn't been any longer than usual, she was simply worn out. There had been so many comings and goings back and forth to London with Lady Grantham lately, she felt as if half of her was still on a train somewhere.
But when she passed by the doorway, she caught sight of Mr. Molesley hunched over a thick book at the table, his eyebrows drawn in concentration, and curiosity won out over fatigue. She found herself missing him more than was entirely proper during her time away. Soundlessly, she glided into the Servant's Hall, taking in the presence of Mr. Bates, buried in his own book, Madge doing some last minute mending, and Thomas Barrow sneering from the rocking chair as he smoked.
She sat quietly next to Mr. Molesley, offering him a smile when he looked up, startled. He smiled back at her.
"What are you reading that's so absorbing, Mr. Molesley?"
"Oh…nothing much," he said, fumbling the book and losing his place.
"Is it something you're helping Daisy with?"
"Um…no. She hasn't mentioned studying any literature. And I doubt I'd be the one to help her there." He lowered his voice and looked down at the book on the table. "I can't make heads or tails of most of these."
"What are they?" she asked, wondering why his cheeks flushed.
He held up the book so that she could see the title, Sonnets of Shakespeare. The spine was cracked and the book obviously much read.
"Mr. Bates lent it to me," he said, neglecting to mention how painful the conversation had been when he'd asked the valet if he had any poetry, the romantic kind. "But I'm starting to think he's playing a little joke on me. These weren't what I thought they'd be…"
"I doubt he'd do that," she replied with a smile, glancing over at Mr. Bates. Were his eyes twinkling for a moment as he glanced quickly over at them, and then back to his book?
"I've read a play or two, when I was at school," Mr. Molesley went on. "They weren't always easy to speak, but they were always exciting. That Macbeth chap was the best one - lots of fighting and ghosts and such. Just what a lad wants to read about."
Miss Baxter smiled at his rising enthusiasm. "I've never read any of it," she admitted. "I left school before we got around to the Shakespeare."
"I wish I'd been able to study it more when I were young. I think I'm too old now to…to really grasp what all this is going on about," he mused.
"Why don't you read some of it to me?" she suggested suddenly.
He looked a little shocked for a moment, then a pleased smile spread across his face.
"Why not? Let's see if you like this one…"
He flipped back through the pages until he found the one he'd read earlier. Clearing his throat and casting a nervous eye towards Thomas, who seemed to be ignoring them, he began in a low voice:
What is your substance, whereof are you made,
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one hath, every one, one shade,
And you but one, can every shadow lend.
Describe Adonis, and the counterfeit
Is poorly imitated after you;
On Helen's cheek all art of beauty set,
And you in Grecian tires are painted new:
Speak of the spring, and foison of the year,
The one doth shadow of your beauty show,
The other as your bounty doth appear;
And you in every blessed shape we know.
In all external grace you have some part,
But you like none, none you, for constant heart.*
She sat in silence when he'd finished, thinking about the poem. He looked at her apprehensively.
"He's talking about a mysterious person, isn't he?" she asked hesitantly. "Someone with secrets?"
"Maybe," he replied, not looking at her. "I thought he might be talking about someone who doesn't know how beautiful she is…" He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "But she's so beautiful to him that everything else that's beautiful can't compare."
"I can't really understand most of those lines, but I like the last one," she commented. "Maybe its her inner beauty, her 'constant heart,' that really makes her beautiful to him?" She looked up to find him staring at her.
"Right..right," he sputtered when she caught him out. "That's what I thought too…"
His eyes kept flitting to her cheeks, where a flush had appeared as she began to understand why he was looking at her, well…like he was looking at her. She couldn't describe it - perhaps that Shakespeare chap could have - but it was rather obvious.
"They're not easy to grasp, are they?" he commented with a nervous giggle.
She shook her head with a smile, thinking she may have grasped more than he'd intended her to.
"How about another then?" she asked. She held out her hand for the book and he gave it to her hesitantly. "What about this one? Venus and Adonis? I think I recognize those names."
Mr. Molesely gave a start and his eyes got wide. It so happened that he'd been reading that one when she'd came over and sat down. And it had made him feel like he needed to loosen his tie. There was no way he was going to be able to read this one to Miss. Baxter, especially with as little privacy as they had.
"Er… well, it's a little…um, I don't know if we should…"
She looked at him with amusement as he tried to find an excuse not to read it. When he began pulling at his collar, she bit her lip and began flipping through the pages.
"It's a bit…um—"
"Long," she interrupted with a smile, looking into his anxious eyes. "It seems to go on for quite a while."
"Yes! Quite…" he agreed, releasing an audible breath. "We should, um…"
"We can save it for another time," she suggested, "perhaps when there's no one about so we don't disturb them."
He swallowed audibly and nodded without meeting her eyes. She handed the book back to him.
"Perhaps there's time for one more before we go up?"
"There's one I quite like," he replied eagerly. "Let me find it…" He flipped through the book until he found one of the spots where the spine was cracked and the page stayed open. Mr. Bates apparently liked this one as well.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.**
Miss Baxter had closed her eyes to listen while he read, and she kept them closed for a moment when he was done. He couldn't help gazing at her until her eyelids began to flutter.
"I quite liked that one too, Mr. Molesley," she said, looking into his eyes. "Thank you for sharing them with me."
"You're welcome, Miss Baxter. Anytime." He watched her as she rose gracefully from her chair. "Anytime at all. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," she replied, touching him lightly on the shoulder as she left.
Mr. Bates stood up slowly when Anna's voice could be heard in the corridor, wishing Miss Baxter a goodnight. He paused next to Mr. Molesley, who was staring blankly at the book of sonnets, his shoulder still tingling from where Miss Baxter had touched him.
"Are you enjoying those, Mr. Molesley?" he asked with a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.
"What? Oh… yes! I'm enjoying them very much, Mr. Bates. Thank you again."
Mr. Bates nodded and turned to greet his wife. The he turned back to Mr. Molesely and flipped through the book to another sonnet.
"You might like this one, Mr. Molesley," he suggested with a raise of his eyebrow before leaving.
Mr. Molesley stared at the sonnet in front of him.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. ***
"Right," he murmured. "No impediments."
He closed the book and tucked it carefully under his arm as he made his way up the stairs, wondering when Miss Baxter's next half day was.
*Sonnet 53 - it's actually an exercise in the metaphysics of beauty, but Joe and Phyllis found something else in it.
** Sonnet 18 - perhaps the most famous of the sonnets, an almost exaggerated exultation of a lovers perfection.
*** Sonnet 116 - usually read as a paean to true and eternal love.