Magic and Manners (An Austen Chronicle Book 1) Page 3

  Mr Webber replied, “You are confoundingly stubborn, Archer,” but did as he was bid, never looking behind himself to see Elsabeth Dover unmoving, a strained smile fixed beneath highly coloured cheeks.

  Archer did turn, and for the sharpest and most breathless of instants, was transfixed by the very same sort of strain that held Elsabeth in place. For a measure, it seemed he might speak, or give in to some small impulse of regret or apology, but the moment passed and he drew himself more stiffly upright. Elsabeth procured a smile no warmer than the one offered by Miss Webber earlier, then, dropping her gaze to the floor, indulged in a small curtsey as Archer strode past.

  A floorboard that surely had been flush with its brethren only seconds before caught the toe of his beautiful boot. Elsabeth took a cunning half-step backward, removing herself from harm’s way, and the full length of Master Fitzgerald Archer’s tall body was laid out on the floor with a crash that silenced every sound in the hall.

  Mr Dover, careful to hide any hint of pride in his smile, appeared to offer Elsa his arm, and together they fetched their party and their coats.

  (4)

  “I have never seen such a thing,” declared Mrs Dover the following morning at breakfast, as if she had not also declared it innumerable times the night before as the family Dover left Newsbury Manor, “never in my life. Not one person could find the flaw in the floor, Mr Dover, not one. I cannot imagine how a gentleman of Mr Archer’s stature could trip and fall so ignominiously in such company. I can hardly imagine his embarrassment, although Mr Dover tells me”—and this was said with great ferocity—“Mr Dover tells me that he was perfectly dreadful with regards to our darling Elsa, and so I cannot find it in myself to sympathise with such a fellow, even if he has been served up with a great dash of humility. I have never seen such a thing!”

  “A gentleman should be known for his grace,” Ruth volunteered so sternly into the stream of her mamma’s repetitious astonishment that for a moment even Mrs Dover was silenced. All eyes turned to the middle-most sister, who, not expecting the pleasure of attention, was obliged to clear her throat to gain a moment in which to find something else to say. But find it she did, and with conviction. “If he is not graceful, perhaps he is not a gentleman,”

  “That,” Mrs Dover said with some irascibility, “is clearly the case, given his dreadful behaviour toward our Elsabeth, although I cannot quite comprehend how a man of his means can also be not a gentleman—”

  “And,” said Ruth, who, having gained an opportunity to speak, did not wish to lose it, “if he is not a gentleman, then I fear that perhaps those who have the poor taste to associate with him cannot themselves be considered gentlemen, either. We must all,” she concluded with triumph, “for the sake of our reputations, divorce ourselves from any proceedings with the party at Newbury Manor!”

  It was very nearly impossible to say whose wail of protest rose the most fervently: Dina’s, Tildy’s or Mrs Dover’s, but it was Rosamund’s cold hand clutching Elsabeth’s beneath the table that bespoke the truest dismay at the prospect. Elsabeth turned her palm up to press a reassurance into Rosa’s fingers, and the sweetest of the Dover sisters smiled in tremulous thanks at the most stubborn of them.

  Mr Dover, interested only in returning the breakfast table, at which he was obliged to sit despite his preference to take the morning meal in the privacy of his library, to quiet, spoke clearly and without lifting his gaze from his papers: “Having gone to such trouble as to acquaint not only myself but my many daughters with Mr Webber, I assure you that unless he is actually seen partaking in abominable behaviour, we shall not be shut of him. Besides, he is invited to dinner a week hence and I cannot renege on that invitation; it would be”—and here he lifted his gaze from the papers to fix Ruth with a droll, yet gimlet, eye, before finishing—“ungentlemanly.”

  Ruth shut her mouth with a sound that could only be defined as unladylike, had anyone been able to hear it beneath the renewed histrionics of the two youngest Dover daughters and their mother. Although their cries were now joyful, they were no quieter than before; poor Mr Dover sank into his chair and brought his papers up, shielding himself from the noise. Elsabeth, already hand in hand with her beloved eldest sister, hastily excused them both from the table and darted into the garden with a flush-cheeked Rosamund in tow. No sooner were they able to speak and be heard than Rosamund did, her hands folded to her bosom with Elsabeth’s still held between them.

  “Oh, he is to come to dinner, Elsa! I confess I like him very much; is that wrong of me, on so little acquaintance? He is everything a young man ought to be, full of sensibility and good humour, happily mannered and of impeccable breeding!”

  “And very handsome,” replied Elsa, “which a young man also ought to be, if he can possibly arrange it. He comes to dinner for you, Rosa, I am certain of it.”

  “He comes because Papa invited him,” Rosamund answered, though hope lit her eyes. “Though I did not expect him to ask me to dance a second time; that was a very great compliment from such a gentleman.”

  “Well.” Elsabeth made the most of a stern and ferocious face, though it was not easy with Rosa’s muffled laughter to break the performance. “I have it on the best authority that you were the handsomest woman in the room, Rosa, so it does not surprise me at all that Mr Webber should pay you such a compliment.”

  “Oh, but Mr Archer should not have been so cruel.” All of Rosa’s burgeoning fondness for Webber was forgotten in sympathy for Elsabeth, who pressed her hand to Rosa’s again and clucked her tongue like a mother hen calling for her chicks.

  “Even if Archer—I shall not grace him with an honourific!— even if he had not insulted me, I could very well have seen by myself that you were easily the prettiest girl in the room, Rosa. If Archer had been wiser, he would have asked you to dance first, and your charms would have made his evening—and my own!—a more pleasant one. I do wish Papa had not been quite so candid with Mamma about the reason for our hasty departure last night; I feel I am quite able to master my own battles, without Mamma’s fluttering outrage on my behalf.”

  “I am very afraid you are entirely able to do so,” Rosa agreed cautiously. “Indeed, I worry about the fall Mr Archer took.”

  Elsa quite wilfully chose to misunderstand, and patted Rosa’s hand in gentle reassurance. “I am sure the only injury was to his pride, Rosa, and he has so very much of it that a little damage cannot do any lasting harm.”

  Rosa, who was sweet, not senseless, nudged Elsabeth and offered a shy smile. “I think you might forgive him his pride, had he not injured yours. He is very handsome.”

  “You are right,” Elsa agreed, “on both counts. But his handsomeness is marred by his aloofness, and as I have no expectation of ever speaking to the man again, I think we should speak no more of him.”

  (5)

  “Confound it, Archer,” said Webber, not for the first— not for the fourth, should he be so pedantic as to point it out to his friend—time, “there is nothing there to find. Even the best of us trip over the toe of our shoe from time to time.”

  The man to whom he spoke, Master Fitzgerald Archer, of whom Elsabeth and Rosamund Dover were at that very moment sworn to discuss no more, might yet have become a topic of their conversation had they been able to see the curious activity in which he was currently engaged. He lay in a most undignified manner, belly-down on the Newbury Manor ballroom floor, with one cheek pressed directly against the highly polished wood, from which all rugs, chairs and tables had been removed so he might examine its uninterrupted surface. From this position he snapped, “I have never tripped on my shoe in my life, Webber, nor have I ever seen you move gracelessly. And that woman moved—”

  “Miss Elsabeth,” Webber interrupted with a weight of disapproval entirely outside his usual purview. He was a generous man, both kind and gentle of spirit, and, not unlike the eldest Dover sister, both inclined to see the very best in people and deeply concerned when others did not. “Her name is
Miss Elsabeth, not That Woman, which is unconscionably rude, Archer. Indeed, I cannot help but think that your very rudeness, both last night and in your refusal to acknowledge her name, might suggest that you were more taken with her beauty than you are willing to admit to.”

  Archer was too dark to blush, but his glower indicated a powerful disapproval of Webber’s fancy. “Don’t be absurd, Webber.”

  “Is it absurd? Certainly, I have seen ladies play at that game, pretending to vehemently dislike what they most admire, all the better to present a challenge to the desired gentleman.” Webber, pleased with his deduction even if Archer would not confirm it, all but waggled a finger in admonition. “Perhaps if you had been less rude last night—”

  “What then?” Archer bounded to his feet with the athletic vigour of a young man accustomed to hunting, riding and walking the lands that he owned. “Had I been less rude—not, Webber, that I concede rudeness, as I was surrounded by persons not nearly of my class and therefore unworthy of my attention. I could not possibly be rude to such creatures. But go on. I dare say you were about to say that had I been less forthright in my honest opinions, I might not have fallen.”

  “Well, yes,” replied a discomfited Webber, who had meant that to be his argument before he was taken with the more delightful idea that politeness might have forced Archer to admit he would like to dance with Miss Elsabeth. Amenable soul that he was, Webber tucked that thought away and embraced the argument Archer appeared more interested in pursuing. “Truthfully, Archer, it seemed only swiftly meted justice, that you should insult Miss Elsabeth and then be made prostrate before her.”

  “And do you believe in a God who metes such justice so quickly?”

  Webber drew his finely clad shoulders back stiffly. “I doubt God has the inclination to look in on our lesser moments, Archer, but perhaps one of his angels.”

  All his discomfiture fell away into a blinding smile; Webber smiled easily and genuinely, a trait which Archer verbally disdained and secretly—so secretly, perhaps, that he had no notion of it himself—admired. This and other aspects of Webber’s usual pleasantry were what drew Archer to him; they were unalike in all but circumstance of birth, which fortunate status was enough for an acquaintance, but that the men held between them a close and personal friendship spoke deeply to the unspoken admiration Archer had for Webber’s amiable nature.

  In turn, it was Archer’s reserve and ferocity that Webber most appreciated, for he knew himself to be passing gentle at times when a little boldness might have stood him in good stead. Archer felt things unequivocally where Webber was of a mind to be swayed by the tide, and it was this resoluteness which Webber most admired about his friend. But it was not of these aspects that either man thought now: Archer retained his affront at the very idea he could have been in the wrong whilst Webber dreamed now of angels, and with a sighing sincerity said, “Perhaps Miss Dover is one of those angels, and through her eyes God watched us yesterday evening.”

  “You cannot possibly be suggesting that God, acting through Miss Dover, who was dancing and entirely unaware of the unfortunate exchange overheard by her sister, caused me to trip on a perfectly flush floor,” Archer said so dourly that Webber was returned from his flights of fancy to blink with astonished rapidity at his friend.

  “No. No, of course not, Archer; don’t be absurd. I’m only saying everyone has a moment of awkwardness from time to time, and that if Miss Elsabeth saw some hint of that clumsiness in your step and removed herself from harm’s way, you can hardly blame her for that. What was she to do, try to catch you and instead be borne to the floor herself by your weight? Dear God, Archer, that would have put you in a compromising position. You’d have had to marry the girl immediately.”

  “What an appalling idea,” drawled Miss Webber from the ballroom doorway, whence she had, unbeknownst to the men, been listening for some time. She minced into the room, skirt lifted enough to show the cunningly worked soft leather of new shoes, and upon reaching the gentlemen put forth a hand so that Archer was obliged by politeness to offer his arm. Miss Webber, who regarded Archer as her personal property out of a necessity to marry suitably rather than any especially deep affection, took his elbow with the casual possessiveness of a woman who could not imagine she might ever be denied. “Robby is right, of course; you might have found yourself obliged to Miss Elsabeth in an utterly inappropriate way. In fact, I could quite forgive her for stepping out of your path had she not stood above you without a trace of distress on her features once you fell. At the very least, she might have been concerned for your welfare.”

  Webber, whose gentle spirit perhaps offered him greater insight to the behaviours of one to whom insult has been given, did not suppose that Miss Elsabeth Dover had any comprehensible reason for showing concern over Archer’s welfare at the time of his fall, but also did not suppose either his sister or Archer would appreciate that observation. He held his tongue while Julia simpered over Archer, and while Archer assumed a look of noble, distant suffering which would no doubt set certain ladies’ hearts aflutter.

  Julia Webber was not among those ladies, and soon lost interest in assuaging Archer’s wounded pride in preference to addressing her brother in a forthright and unqualified manner. “It seems to me that while Miss Elsabeth may suffer the folly of pride, her sister is a charming, sweet creature with whom I should like to have greater acquaintance.”

  “Very good!” Webber cried, having with Julia’s words instantly put out of his mind all thoughts of unpleasantry. “Mr Dover has invited me to dinner a week tomorrow; we shall all attend!”

  “Lord, no,” Miss Webber said with perfectly genuine horror. “That simpering mother, those dreadful younger daughters? It is bad enough that after the ball, they will come calling and my sister and I will be obliged in turn to call upon them. You cannot expect me to spend an entire evening with them. I cannot imagine what that mother might consider an acceptable table, but I am sure that I will not sit for it. Rosamund Dover must come to Newsbury Manor instead. It will be far more suitable for all involved.”

  Webber blinked at his sister in slow and owlish astonishment. “But I have given my word, Julia.”

  “Then you may go,” Julia said with a delicate shudder, “but certainly Archer and myself will not be joining you.”

  “In this, Julia speaks for me,” Archer agreed in such dour tones that Webber was inclined to blush about it.

  “Very well. You shall all regret it, I am sure, but I will go by myself to Oakden House and enjoy myself very much.”

  (6)

  The Dover household was for days in a futher; Mrs Dover could have nothing less than the best for the arrival of a man she already thought fondly of as her son. To this end, she harried the cook, berated the maids, bullied the gardener and, above all, related each instance of their imagined failures in minute detail to Mr Dover, whose closed library door did not prove the barrier he might have hoped it to. The only respites from these activities were the Dover ladies’ necessary visit to the ladies of Newsbury Manor, and the visit paid in return, which in themselves were new fodder for breathless discussion and hope, for it was clear that the sisters Webber found Rosamund in particular and Elsabeth to a lesser degree to be entirely charming companions. Further invitations were not as of yet issued to the two eldest Dover daughters, but, as Mrs Dover related to Mr Dover at great length and considerable repetition, it was all very promising.

  Driven away by feminine palpitations, Mr Dover had taken to passing his time in the gardens, at as great a distance from the house as he could achieve without taking a horse and leaving for Bodton, the nearby village that gave itself airs of being a town.

  Nor was he the only member of his family so inclined to escape the walls of their loved and crumbling family home. Rosamund weathered her mother’s fits with equanimity, and Ruth enjoyed helping with the preparations because it allowed her to feel as if she did penance with each shrill exclamation that flowed from Mrs Dover’s lips.
Tildy and Dina were of no especial use, but ran after Mrs Dover, echoing her admonitions and clinging to one another, full of giggles, whenever they thought of Mr Webber’s visit. But Elsabeth, though not unwilling to help, could not long bear their mother’s prattling, and so Mr Dover often saw her in the gardens as well, examining apple trees for their burgeoning fruit or simply treading soft grass pathways in endless repetitions, as if a pacing lioness had been bound into the body of a young woman. When they saw each other, they smiled and nodded, but otherwise left well enough alone, recognising that neither required company save the solidarity of knowing they were understood by at least one other member of the household.

  On the morning of the day upon which Mr Webber was expected for dinner, Elsabeth’s solitary wanderings were interrupted by a glad visitor: her dear friend Sophia Enton, who had danced first with Mr Webber at the ball and who had allowed herself an entire week to savour that before visiting the Dovers, whose oldest, prettiest daughter was clearly the more favoured by Mr Webber. Sophia was not envious; she was too pragmatic for that, and knew herself to be stronger of feature than was the current fashion, but it did no harm to hold the illusion in place a little while longer than necessary.

  Elsabeth, upon seeing her, seized Sophia’s hands and proclaimed with all sincerity—for though she was not as generous of spirit as Rosamund, she loved Sophia dearly and wanted nothing more than her happiness—“Oh, Sophia, I wish that you were coming to dinner tonight. I would trade my three younger sisters to your mother, that we could have pleasant and sensible conversation throughout the evening.”