Page 27 of Yielding to Love

This was the most engaged the man had been since arriving home. And Miss Harrington was smiling brightly, transforming her arrestingly pretty features to arrestingly beautiful. Crispin chewed his lip with exaggerated hesitation, then said, “Very well. I accept the challenge. Miss Harrington?”

She pointed to the wall clock. “We give each other ten minutes to choose a poem. There are a few volumes in the library if you need one.”

“Need one!” Crispin gasped as though offended. He put a hand to his heart. “I carry my favorites here.”

Miss Harrington laughed. “I’m ready as well. Just a moment.” She moved to a desk that had been pushed against the back wall and opened a drawer, then returned with foolscap and pencils. “Now we are ready. Marianne shared a poem with me. She said her friend copied it from her sister-in-law’s letter. The author is very probably the same lady who wrote Sense and Sensibility.”

“Then it must be delightful.”

“It is.” She recited, “Happy the lab’rer in his Sunday clothes!—In light-drab coat, smart waistcoat, well-darn’d hose—And hat upon his head, to church he goes—As oft, with conscious pride, he downward throws—A glance upon the ample cabbage rose—That, stuck in button-hole, regales his nose.—He envies not the gayest London beaux.—In church he takes his seat among the rows—Pays to the place the reverence he owes—Likes best the prayers whose meaning least he knows—Lists to the sermon in a softening doze—And rouses joyous at the welcome close.”

Crispin burst into laughter. After a startled moment, both Harringtons laughed along. “I’ve been in that laborer’s shoes.” He tried clearing his throat. “So the challenge is to compose a poem where all the lines rhyme with rose?”

“Yes. Or you may pick another word. Something easy to rhyme.”

He nodded.

“And now you must give me one,” she said.

Unfortunately, his boast might be his undoing. Although he knew many poems by heart, his mind had gone blank, except for one filthy limerick he would not recite, and a poem by Donne that he probably should not recite, for all he found it amusing. “Give me a moment.”

Harrington said, “Come now, Major. No waffling.”

Donne it was then. “Well, all right. Here is it. A Woman’s Constancy.”

Miss Harrington rolled her eyes.

“You know it?” he asked.

“Yes. Go on.”

He took a breath. “Now thou hast loved me one whole day,—Tomorrow when thou leav’st, what wilt thou say?—Wilt thou then antedate some new made vow?—Or say that now—We are not just those persons which we were?—Or, that oaths made in reverential fear—Of love, and his wrath, any may forswear?—Or, as true deaths, true marriages untie,—So lovers’ contracts, images of those,—Bind but till sleep, death’s image, them unloose?—Or, your own end to justify,—For having purposed change, and falsehood, you—Can have no way but falsehood to be true?—Vain lunatic, against these ’scapes I could,—Dispute and conquer, if I would,—Which I abstain to do,—For by tomorrow, I may think so too.”

Harrington sniffed. “I say, Major, that’s rather rude.”

“It’s John Donne,” Miss Harrington said. “His love poetry is generally rude.” She handed Crispin a few pieces of paper and a pencil, then pointed at the clock. “Thirty minutes.”

*

“You are out of time,” Harrington announced. “What do you have?”

Crispin winced. He’d forgotten how truly bad he was at writing poetry. Jasper used to taunt him about it. He knew this was a game. And he’d warned them he was bad at it. But this was embarrassing.

“Go on, Major Taverston,” Miss Harrington urged. “You may go first.”

“Fine.” He tried not to grit his teeth. “Happy the poet who dost compose,—With the same ease with which a river flows,—Who never resorts to overblown prose,—But turns out couplets like well-aimed arrows—”

“Couplets like arrows?” Harrington’s head fell back, and he roared. Laughter was good medicine. He looked less like a slowly dying man and more like a man with something to live for.

Miss Harrington pressed her lips tight, appearing desperate not to guffaw.

Crispin circled his hand in the air. “It goes on like that.”

Miss Harrington snorted. “Maybe you should have used ‘dear.’”

“It wouldn’t have been any better.” He tried to look sorrowful, but ended up laughing along. “I concede. Just don’t make me read the rest.”

When he’d caught his breath, Harrington said, “Let us hear yours, Camellia.”