A Night at the Opera
By Kathleen Berney
pkmoonshine03@yahoo.com
“ . . . do it again and I’LL break the OTHER arm,” she said in a voice deceptively calm, just above the level of the softest whisper. The menace in her tone, however, was heard all too clearly.
He had drawn the short straw early this morning, after Lady Beatrice had made it known that she wanted very much to see the opening performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s “MacBeth,”* at Piper’s Opera House in town this evening. Though he enjoyed the opera, having attended as time allowed during the four years he was a college student, tonight’s performance in the company of Lady Beatrice with his arm in a sling was turning out to be a mixed blessing at best.
Throughout the first act and half way through the second, he and Lady Beatrice sat tightly sandwiched between a pair of big, hulking, dandified young men, around Joe’s age, give or take a few, who were also brothers . . . identical twins no less. Ten minutes before the end of the first act, the cramping in his shoulder and chest muscles, consequence of holding his shoulders hunched forward within a small, confined space, had become unbearable. He had to get some measure of relief; and draping his good arm across the chair to his right, the one occupied by Lady Beatrice, seemed the most efficient way of going about it.
“I’m terribly sorry, Lady Beatrice,” Adam apologized at once, figuring she made reference to him resting his good arm across the back of her chair. “I promise you . . . it will NOT happen again.”
“It had better not!” she returned through clenched teeth, as she turned to smile and nod toward the young men sharing their box. “Adam Cartwright, I have never been so mortified in my entire life.”
Adam frowned. It had certainly not been his intention to take liberties with the woman.
She and Lord Marion had gone their separate ways not long after their return to England from their last visit to America, which included a stopover at the Ponderosa. Lady Beatrice had filed for divorce after the requisite waiting period, on the grounds of desertion.
According to the scuttlebutt currently making its rounds throughout the parlors and drawing rooms all over London, Lord Marion had left Lady Beatrice and run off with a voluptuous young woman, a bit less than half his age, to live with her in a commune somewhere in the rugged highlands of Scotland of all places. The members of said community reportedly adhered to a strict vegan diet, a most fortunate happenstance indeed for Lord Marion, given his aversion to hunting these days.
When Lady Beatrice’s letter arrived, announcing her impending visit to, in her words, “drown my sorrows and assuage my broken heart in the company of four very handsome, very charming gentlemen,” Pa made it very clear that until the final papers were signed and the ink dried, Lady Beatrice was still a married woman in his eyes, AND in the eyes of the law. Crossing either one had the potentiality of making life a little too interesting.
Good thing for him that the Lady Beatrice, attractive, lively, and yes! . . . very interesting though she was in many ways, just plain and simply wasn’t his type.
That having been said, how she could possibly stand there and tell him so brazenly, with such a straight face, that she had never been so mortified in her life, simply because he needed a place upon which to rest his arm, mystified and angered him. If anyone had a right to be mortified, it was him for having to sit there and watch this woman, who was old enough to be . . . well, to be his older babysitter, simpering and giggling like a schoolgirl whilst “Tweedle-Dee” and “Tweedle-Dum” paid her court, piling it on very high and very deep.
“Lady. Beatrice.” Adam began, ever-so-slightly over enunciating each syllable, a habit into which he unconsciously slipped when extremely irritated. He took great pains to keep his voice low, so not to be overheard by the other patrons of the theater, now making their way back to their seats as intermission drew to an end. In the interests of keeping his reputation as a gentleman intact, perhaps an explanation WAS in order. “Again, my apologies for what may have been perceived as taking undue liberties. I merely wanted to rest my arm--- ”
“My Dear Adam, what ARE you talking about?” Lady Beatrice demanded with a puzzled frown.
“I’m trying to apologize for resting my arm across the back if your chair,” Adam replied. “I had no intention of taking liberties and I AM very sorry I offended you. It’s just that, since I broke the one arm, the other’s had to do double duty as it were, and tires rather easily.”
Lady Beatrice’s laughter, thankfully, was decorous and subdued as befitting time and place. “Oh, Adam, goodness gracious, I wasn’t offended by THAT,” she purred. “You, Dear Man, may put YOUR arm around me any time you like for as long as you like.”
Adam tried not to flinch from those dewy, come hither eyes, appraising him as she might something incredibly good to eat. “I don’t understand, Lady Beatrice . . . what HAVE I done to offend you?” he asked, genuinely perplexed.
“Adam, you aren’t coming down with something . . . are you?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“No allergies?”
Adam shook his head.
“All right, then!” she said briskly. “When we go back in for the third and final act? If you don’t stop your damned coughing, so HELP me . . . I WILL break your other arm.”
The End
September 27, 2007
*The first performance of Verdi’s opera, “MacBeth,” was March 14th, 1847,
in Florence at the Teatro Della Pergola. I don’t know whether or not this
opera actually had a run at Piper’s Opera House in Virginia City during
the time period in which Bonanza is set . . . only that it’s possible.