My Lady Jane(122)

“I receive you,” he whispered. And then, louder: “I know I said this last time, but this time, I mean it with my whole heart. I, Gifford Dudley, hereby declare my devotion to you. I swear to love you, protect you, be faithful to you, and make you the happiest woman in the world. My love for you is as deep as the ocean and as bright as the sun. I will protect you from every danger. I am blind to every woman but you. Your happiness is paramount in my heart.” He retrieved the matching ring and pushed it onto her finger. “I give myself to you, my Lady Jane.”

“I receive you.” Jane didn’t wait for instructions to kiss. She stood on her toes and wrapped her arms around her husband’s shoulders and kissed him as the guests clapped and clapped.





THIRTY


Gifford

What’s a wedding without the wedding night? Considering that their first wedding night ended with a heap of horse dung in the corner of their room, it wasn’t difficult to hope for something better this time.

And better it was, for G loved his lady, and his lady loved him.

And there were no secrets between them anymore, save one. G wanted to confess it to his lady before they commenced with the very special hug.

He asked Jane to sit next to him on the bed. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Go on,” Jane said.

G took her hand in his and traced his finger over the delicate skin of her arm. What she didn’t realize was that he was scrawling the words of a poem he had recently written. It was inspired by his lady and he had spent many long hours trying to find the words that adequately conveyed the feelings of his heart.

There were many false starts, because at first he tried to capture the moment a horse fell in love with a ferret.

Shall I compare thee to a barrel of apples?

Thou art more hairy, but sweeter inside.

Rough winds couldn’t keep me from taking you to chapel, Where finally a horse would take a bride. . . .

And then he tried to wax poetic about the ferret alone. . . .

Shall I compare thee to a really large rat?

Thou art more longer, with less disease.

One would never mistake you for a listless cat . . .

Nor a filthy dog, because my dog has fleas.

He could never confess his passion for poetry with those paltry examples.

And then, at the second wedding, as G basked in the glow of Jane’s radiant smile, inspiration finally hit him, and after the feast he put quill to paper and wrote and wrote until he had it right.

“Tell me, my love.”

“You remember how I had a reputation? With . . . ladies?”

“Yes,” she said, eyeing him warily.

“The truth is, there were never any ladies, nor late night romps at houses of ill repute.”

His Jane looked confused. “Then where did all the stories come from?”

“There were late nights, but those nights consisted of . . .” His voice trailed off as his heart raced.

“Of what?” Jane said, her mind racing to all sorts of unsavory conclusions.

“P—” He started to say the word, but paused.

“Perversion?” Jane said.

“No.”

“Peculiar habits?”

“No. Well, one.”

“If you don’t tell me right away what it is, I will knit all of your clothes from now on,” she said, and she fully intended to follow through on her threat.

“Poetry,” G blurted out.

“Pardon me?” Jane said.

G climbed out of bed and stood at the foot. He pulled out the paper and began his recitation.

“My Lady Jane . . .

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 dimm’d;

And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm’d; 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.”

With a deep breath, G tore his eyes away from the paper to assess his lady’s reaction.

“That was . . . lovely,” Jane said.

“You really think so?”

“Yes. I mean, I’m glad we will not be forced to live by your quill, because I am rather used to having food on the table. But, I appreciate the effort behind those words.”

(Now, some of you might recognize these words as belonging to a certain Mr. Shakespeare, the likes of whom hadn’t actually been born yet in the year 1553. But you should also know that there are all kinds of conspiracy theories about who actually wrote Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, and we contend that the real writer was a very old and very happy Gifford Dudley—assisted by Jane and the immeasurable knowledge she drew from books—who went on writing not to make himself famous or rich, but to make a certain lady happy.) G smiled and fell back onto the bed. “You have no idea what a relief it is to hear you say that.”