Swear Not by the Moon: Part Two

August 19th

"Such is my love, to thee I so belong, that for thy right myself will bear all wrong."

"What in the world?"

Flowers. Everywhere, flowers. Surely, some poor garden somewhere had been denuded for this as the flowers were fresh. It was absolutely lovely, but she couldn't understand it. Paulina noticed a touch of soil in the heavy floral scent. Lady Montague and Lady Bianca kept a very tidy house. If either of them knew their furnishings had been covered with uprooted flowers, they would be very angry. And who would ever think of such a silly thing? Beatrice was meant to be the only one at home, and while she was prone to an odd display on occasion, this...

This was not Beatrice at all.

First, Paulina scolded herself for stupidity. Then, she wondered if she hadn't suspected as much. If Beatrice wanted to see her, she seized the opportunity to leave Montague Court and came herself. She didn't send sealed notes asking Paulina to come visit. Paulina knew it and came anyway. If she said she hadn't thought more of Mercutio than of Beatrice during the ride over, she would have lied.

If she said she hadn't thought more of Mercutio than of anyone or anything else in the past week, she would have lied. Her conversation with Valentine had triggered a landslide of reflections. Paulina doubted everything she had done and fretted over everything she might do. All of the old pain was revived - though a shadow of its former self, a palpable shadow. Perhaps it would be for the best. Perhaps it was God's work. How often had she prayed in the early months, begging for an opportunity to resolve her heartbreak? This would not be the exact resolution she had prayed for then. Most likely, this would be a conclusion, not a reprise. But just the same, the heartache would end. "Mercutio, you may as well come out here. I know you did this."

"Strictly speaking," he replied as he stepped into sight, "it was Romeo's idea."

"And what did Romeo intend by dressing your grandmother's sitting room in flowers?"

Mercutio kicked his toe against the floor. He had stuffed his brain with words witty and apologetic - but only too well. His mind trembled under the weight of Paulina's disgust. "To impress an intelligent lady with a contrived gesture. His true skill is forgery, and I have exhausted every honest means of addressing you. I would have paid him any price." 

"And no matter your grandmother's reaction?" 

"The flowers will be cleared out before she ever knows." Antonio and Beatrice had gone with Benedick to settle him into his dormitory at the Académie. Mercutio's grandmother and aunt had gone with them as far as the school and then traveled on to visit the busiest cloth market in Verona. None of them would be home for several days. If he could convince Paulina to stay, Mercutio would have a chance to speak freely to her. "Would you sit down?" 

She balked. "I don't think I should."

Timidly, Mercutio stepped forward into the room. "Please, just sit for a few minutes." He picked the small vase of orange flowers off the sofa and set them on the floor. "Please?" 

Paulina saw the perfect opportunity to halt Mercutio's advances. She could throw the stunted blight he had created into his hands. She could see how well he endured days when the passing of every minute was announced by the pinprick of a broken heart. But these would be the revenges of a truly disinterested lady, one who wouldn't be devastated if he recovered quickly. Paulina chose to sit down instead. "I am surprised you have time to waste." 

As he sat down beside her, he flinched. "It isn't a waste."

"No?" she asked starkly. "How could it be that I am now no longer a distraction from your true priorities?"

"That isn't what I meant."

"But it is what you said."

Though calmly spoken, the words pierced him. None of his actions were so great a sin as the words he chose to drive her off. "I lied to you. I lied to you because you were - are - so important to me."

"And why did you lie, if you lied at all?" Paulina sounded unimpressed.

Mercutio explained everything to her. He told her how a night's drinking had made him vulnerable to a forged note so conveniently given first to Romeo. He told her of sneaking into Capulet Manor despite his misgivings, of the unbelievable fortune of being caught and deterred by Adrian Albion. He laid out his analysis of the crime, his belief that Antonio would disavow his troublesome nephews, the cowardly poisoners, and sacrifice them on the altar of civil order if the Capulets didn't. He admitted he still didn't know who Antonio's more clever accomplice - for there must have been one - was. "Antonio wouldn't harm you, but I didn't know what this partner would do. Antonio himself is brilliant proof of how to break a man by destroying what he loves."

Paulina was taken aback by this complex scheme. There was no question about believing it. Of all the faults she could assign to Mercutio, stupidity wasn't among them. If he believed it, then so did she. It made sense. If Mercutio and Romeo were eliminated, Lord Montague and his son would be unchallenged. The cruelty and complexity did point to a partner; Lord Montague was simply not so devious. But the final cruelty of it all belonged to Mercutio, and that was what Paulina couldn't overcome. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I thought you wouldn't listen," he muttered.

"How could you think that?"

"I didn't mean..." Mercutio shook his head. "I thought you wouldn't agree when I told you that you had to stay away from me."

To herself, Paulina admitted he was right. Everyone knew the risks of attaching one's self to certain families; the Montagues were among the more dangerous attachments in Verona. Mercutio's mother and Beatrice's mother had been killed only months apart; before that, their aunt's fiancé had also been murdered. Despite this, she would have told him she had no fear and no intention of hiding. If the past didn't frighten her, she certainly wouldn't be intimidated by the mere possibilities. "And you preferred deceiving me to risking an honest conversation."

Mercutio had known she was and would be upset, but he had not anticipated that she might not give him any credit whatsoever for his reasons. "I was only thinking of your own good."

"What good came of being jilted?"

"Paulina," he pleaded, his voice starting to strain, "please believe that I know I went about this wrong. When I realized there was something in my life from which I couldn't protect you, I... I panicked." The word barely passed his lips.

"Protect me?" she scoffed. Her expression lingered in the fog between anger and bitter disappointment. "You shattered me. The only dangerous thing in my life was you, and you hurt me worse than anyone else could have. You worried about someone using me to break you, but you broke me!"

"Better broken than dead," Mercutio snapped; he would quickly regret it. "Better unhappy than dead, can we not agree on that? There was no guarantee that anyone would believe I had suddenly lost interest in you, but it was the only idea I had. It was all I could do. I don't know how my father could have lived with himself, how Antonio lives with himself. If you had been hurt, I couldn't have!"

Paulina flew up onto her feet. She saw red - an angry blood red - everywhere she looked. "But you never asked me! You never asked what I would prefer! And do you know, I would rather die young and happy than miserable and old!" The tears which had welled and died a dozen times finally pushed over. With a quick swipe of her hand, Paulina brushed them away. "If I wanted safety, I would have stayed at the convent. Whether my life is safe and or unsafe, short or long, I want it to be happy. I wanted to be happy with you, and instead... oh, this is pointless. The only thoughts you value are your own!"

Panicked, Mercutio shot across the room to block the door. "No, please. Please, don't leave me."

Those were words and a tone straight out of Paulina's heart a few months earlier. Renewed and from another person, they still hurt. "I want to go."

"I know. I know I would, no matter what I said, but you are a better person than I am. We have proven that, haven't we?" Rather than laugh, he sighed. "Let me benefit from your superiority one more time. One more time." Mercutio didn't wait for her to say no. "I won't say I made a mistake - I have made a pile of them. If every one was a single drop of water, I could drown myself in them. There is generosity and there is stupidity, and it would take a generous helping of stupidity to forgive the man who stands in front of you. You shouldn't. You should shove him aside and never look his way again."

A few minutes ago, Paulina would have agreed. One half of her still did. The other half twitched under the strain of resisting him. Reason told her to let him go. If a man needed a second chance, he could need a third, a fourth, a fifth. Life was too short and too precious to Paulina to squander on drama. But what was more wasteful than misery, misery based solely on an empty principle? She wanted him. She wanted the interesting, clever, good man she loved in spite of herself. There might be excruciatingly miserable days ahead, but there would also be the exquisitely joyful times. If she felt sure that there would always be another of the latter, she could risk the former.

"Let me start over," Mercutio continued. "I'll forget that your birthday is in May, that your family colors are your favorite colors, and that you wear that caul because the nuns made all the girls cover their heads. I'll start borrowing Bianca's hair brushes again whenever I think I'll see you. I won't realize right away that you eat fish and not meat. You can confuse me again by having three favorite flowers instead of one. And when you let me know that you have the most beautiful philosophy I've ever heard, it won't be said in pain. I'll never hurt you again. I swear it, by God and the heavens, by the stars in the sky, the sun and the moon."

"Don't swear by the moon. The moon is inconstant, changeable."

Mercutio prayed to God he would never faint - but, if he would, it would be right now. He could have passed away from the relief he drew out of those hesitant but promisingly warm eyes. The rest of the world could hang. He was touching the best of it with his fingertips. "I will swear by you and your constant perfection. If I break my vow, may I never see another drop of forgiveness from you and die with your beautiful face burned into my heart by regret."

"If you must swear, swear by yourself. Swear on this Mercutio, the one I want to forgive." Leaning into Mercutio's shoulder, she muttered, "I don't want to start over. I don't want to waste more time. Swear only to not break my heart again. The rest will come on its own."

"Are you sure? Shouldn't you scourge me until I deserve you again?"

"As I said, if I wanted a safe life, I would have stayed at the convent."

"Then I do swear."

Next Post: "All days are nights to see till I see thee."