A
LADY’S SECRET
ACT
ZERO
SCENE
TWO
“Dear
Mary, I have a secret to reveal”
“I
am in love with your lover, and this hurts me more than you may feel. I met MacBeth
at your engagement, and it was love to me then at first sight. It was
unbecoming of myself but I could not ignore my feelings. I will recit you my
favourite lines.
“But
my true love is grown to such excess / I cannot sum up some of half my wealth”
Romeo and Juliet (3.1. 33–34).”
“Love,
in other words, resists any single metaphor because it is too powerful to be so
easily contained or understood. I felt disappointed that father gave you away
to him but not me. He was always loving to you, more than me. I know that
father tried to give you the best given your frail health but in me I held a
frail heart too. I needed his love but you were there.”
“I
wished I could had told father then but we, the ladies are told and not tell. I
disked that for it gave us no meaning to our existence except to bicker and
gossip on each other’s back. Why can we not make to stand our own with the
duels or the trading of fists? Why must we just have the obligations to the
man?”
“Mary,
MacBeth is a fine man, and destined for greater heights. While you owned him
now and would not share him, I will await my moment next to you. It may sound
like I envy you, and yes, I do.”
“I
shall wait, Mary.”
“Your
sister, Elleanor.”
Elleanor
folded the letter not sent for her heavy heart was to be burdened by another
event.
“Come
Elleanor, Mary is in bad shape.” Elleanor heard the maid who rushed to her
chamber. She hid the letter back into the vanity case and followed the maid.
Her sister was to deliver the off spring with her lover, the Colonel of Gladis.
She reached the door to the personal chamber and saw the departing nurses
covered in blood and tears.
“What
of my sister, Mary?” Elleanor stopped one of the nurses.
“She
is dead, my Lady. Her child will not breathe either.” The nurse told her. “The
Lord is inside. He just made it to her side.”
“The
Healers ……”
“They
tried but her Ladyship is too weak in her body and soul.” The nurse then rushed
off. Elleanor made her entrance to the chamber and saw the Colonel was on his
knees while holding his beloved right hand. He was at tears, and the child was
shrouded by the mother’s side. She had not seen a man cried, but that sight was
there. Tears knew no gender for it was driven by the emotion of the living. He
did not bawl like the child but the tears were flowing. She saw then Banquo
standing a distance away, and he saw her. He approached her and it was into his
arms she took to release her tears.
“I
have so much to tell Mary>”: Elleanor sobbed.
“She
will hear, Elleanor. And forgive. Both of you are sisters.” Banquo held the
lady close to him while he looked at his friend. “Elleanor, for now MacBeth
needs you.”
Elleanor
wept but unseen by her was the tears of Banquo.
“There’s
beggary in the love that…... cannot be reckoned. Not by wealth or by death. You
deserve more than this.” Banquo said to himself. “Good bye, Mary.”
Adapted
and revised from – Antony and Cleopatra, Act 1, scene 1, line 16
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