Laertes advised me against my love for Hamlet, saying his love would not last longer than a minute. I eyed him warily. “No more but so?” I replied, keeping the sarcasm in my voice in check.
His response was unsatisfactory. “Think it no more.” I held in my snort of laughter. It was terribly unladylike to snort. My overprotective brother was too brash. I had my letters from Hamlet. The prince loved me. I trusted my own judgment, and his heart.
Still, I smiled for my brother and assured him that I would keep the advice close to my heart. It was better for him to not worry. Father approached, scolding Laertes for keeping the ship to France waiting, and then detaining him further with one of his lengthy speeches. I fought the urge to roll my eyes, but one thing he said stuck out to me. “To thine own self be true.” Interesting that he never gave me any such advice. He considered me a puppet. In his eyes, my will was not my own.
As Laertes stood to leave, he looked at me. “Farewell, Ophelia, and remember well what I have said to you.” I narrowed my eyes into slits at him, and he had the decency to look uncomfortable with my petulant stare. As was his intention, Father honed in on this last statement and questioned me as to what Laertes could have spoken to me about.
“So please you,” I said through clenched teeth, “something touching the Lord Hamlet.” My voice softened on Hamlet’s name, but I kept the smile from my face. It was best not to give my father too many weapons against me.
Still, he berated me for information about my Hamlet. I thought it best to play the till he was pleased with my supposed acceptance of his wishes. He demanded that I refuse Hamlet’s attention. I said I would obey. I lied.
The next day, Hamlet came to me while I was alone. He looked … disturbed, to say the least. He shook like a leaf and grabbed onto my arms for support. I held him upright.
“Hamlet, what has happened? Speak!” His eyes met mine, considering.
“You will only tell your father. I will keep my secrets.” He let go of me, lurching to the doorway. But he was still suffering from some shock I didn’t understand, and so I was faster. I wedged myself between him and the door.
“My loyalties lie with you, my love, and I’ll not breathe a word to Polonius. You would not have come here in such a state if you had not meant to confide in me. So I charge you, speak!”
His eyes met mine again, weighing my words, and then he slumped into my arms, drained. He relayed everything from his night, for he had been outside the castle walls till the sun came up, and I listened in silence.
Shocked.
His father’s ghost reaching out to him, begging vengeance on the man who had slain him – the dead king’s own brother! It was almost too much to believe.
Almost. But I knew in my being that Hamlet would never lie to me. And so, we planned.
“You cannot prove these things to others on solely the word of a ghost, my love. You must find proof. I can help you, but perhaps we should hide our jointed wills from others. Even yesterday my father forbid me speak to you.”
Hamlet nodded. “With your unquestioned goodness, you could play a perfect spy, but I do not wish to use you.”
I smiled. “I would gladly be your willing accomplice than my father’s unwilling puppet.”
We planned everything out to a perfect, flawless shine. My confession of Hamlet’s crazed visit to my father (though leaving off our exchange), Hamlet’s dismissal of me in front of both my father and the King, and lastly the play. The play was the most important part. If we could use it to guilt Claudius into confession, we would.
When Claudius leapt to his feet to run from the performance, I followed quietly. When I found him crying and mumbling, I bid him walk with me. He followed without question. When we got to the very arras that had hidden himself and my father as they watched Hamlet rant that I should dismiss myself to a nunnery, I stopped, and questioned him.
“My lord, what troubles you so? I beg you, confide in me that I may pray for you.” He looked into my eyes, seeing no doubt what my father sees, a girl with no will of her own. He confessed.
When he had spoken all his sins, I wiped the understanding look from my eyes and walked the few feet to lift the curtain, where Hamlet had brought both his mother and Horatio as witnesses to this confession. In the ensuing uproar, Gertrude summoned guards and arrested her husband, who after some raging, ultimately went quietly.
As Hamlet and I stood arm-in-arm, watching the uproar, my father approached. Spluttering, he demanded an explanation. “I told you to rebuke his company!”
I smiled up at Hamlet, who I had married in secret the night before, with only Horatio as our witness. “And I have a will – and a heart – of my own.”
