Shariara and Sarvazad strolled, or rode out daily, his hound always faithfully at his side, with Margaret trailing at an indulgent, but watchful distance. On their walks, they usually stopped to rest at the small marble gazebo, marking the eastern boundary of the estate’s park. Margaret always sat beneath her parasol at a distance, on a shallow, stone bench in the grassy glen, absorbed in some tome or other.
On one such day, Shariara regaled Sarvazad with tales of the local gossip, which greatly amused him. Removing her fetching burgundy bonnet with gold-colored ribbons, she shared all the rumors concerning him. Her flame-colored locks glowed like a halo about her little heart-shaped face. She ended the tales in a light, teasing tone with, “But, my favorite is that you are the son of the Regent, himself, and an exiled Persian princess.”
He threw back his head and laughed outright at that. Light flashed blue in his wavy black hair and the sun gleamed off his perfect teeth. Then, he shared the truth of his tale with her. “Nothing so glamorous, I assure you,” he said with a sardonic smile. “My father was raised in a monastic school. He was the last of eleven brothers and his father intended he should assume orders. But, he was ill-suited to the rigors of the Cloth. So his father purchased him a commission aboard a merchant ship of milord Montague, where he, in time, rose to captain.”
Sarvazad continued, “Eventually, he rose to manage milord Montague’s considerable trade concerns in the Orient, from the Persian Gulf, at Abadan. On a tour of those concerns, milord brought with him his wilder young sister. I’m afraid she made rather a spectacle of herself with a minor French noble in the neighborhood. My father extricated her from a looming debacle. She was my mother.”
“Years passed before the French made the British situation too intolerable. Father, at milord’s behest, then made the treacherous journey with mother and myself and my sister to England.” He ended on a pensive tone.
Shariara’s asked, “You have a sister?”
Sadness darkened his expression, “Her name was Parvani. She and my parents died of a fever on the journey to England… within sight of the French coast. I was but a callow youth.”
She took one of his hands between hers and bowed her head. Spreading tear stains darkened the pale rose muslin of her gown, and the golden yellow ribbons of her bonnet trailing across her lap. Sarvazad took her face in his hands, wiping away the tears. He kissed her so tenderly it was like a whisper upon her lips.
Margaret looked on in silence, smiling at so reverently touching a scene, her own eyes brimming with unshed tears.
© 10 October 2014 by D. Denise Dianaty
“The Dance Plays On… reads quite like a Victorian Gothic story. All the classic elements are present, and yet this story is quite original. In an opening scene that could have come right out of Austen’s ‘Mansfield Park’, the author introduces the main character, her guardian, and a handsome, heroic young man.
Elspeth is the most fully developed of the characters, while some remain somewhat two-dimensional. It must be said, though, that this is neither unusual nor out of place for a story of this length. While immediately positioned to like and favour Elspeth, the reader is less enamoured with her guardian, Mrs McIlroy, and experiences quite some relief to see her develop so that she becomes less aloof and detached, and actually demonstrates genuine care and affection for both Elspeth and her beau.
I enjoyed the melancholy, haunting tone and the eerie foreshadowing of the second half of the story, which kept the “heroine in distress” trope from being cliched or predictable. ~MapleLeafAussie
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