Magic and Manners (An Austen Chronicle Book 1)
Page 15
It could not be said aloud that, without Cox’s pervading presence, Elsabeth was unlikely to have remained unaccompanied. Instead, with the least encouraging expression she could manage, Elsa sat and listened to her cousin drone on. When, some hours later, she chanced to meet Archer’s eye again, she was forced to the unusual activity of wishing she had behaved differently earlier. Had she not thrown the matter of Hartnell in Archer’s face, her evening might have been spent a little more with him, which might have been unpleasant, but far more interesting, than an evening in the company of Reginald Cox.
(26)
Worse still than the evening was the following morning, when, at breakfast, Mr Cox asked Mrs Dover if he might have a moment of Miss Elsabeth’s time, alone. Mrs Dover alone rose with delight; every other family member startled in one degree or another; even Mr Dover emerged from behind his papers to proclaim, “I am sure there is nothing Mr Cox has to say to Elsabeth that he cannot say to all of us.”
“Do not be absurd, Mr Dover,” Mrs Dover said through her teeth. “Rise, and permit these young people a moment of privacy.”
Elsabeth seized Rosamund and Ruth’s hands; they were beside her at the table, and all the shield she could muster. Rosamund gazed at her with horrified sympathy and Ruth with heartbroken betrayal. A similar expression graced Leopoldina’s face, though, Elsabeth suspected, for wholly different reasons: no one had asked for a moment alone with her, and it was unforgiveable that someone should choose Elsabeth first. Matilda appeared less dismayed, but followed Dina’s path in this as in everything, and allowed her chin to quiver with sorrow.
“Perhaps I could stay, Mamma,” Rosamund ventured. “For seemliness.”
“It is not unseemly for two young persons of a certain age and expectation to spend a little time without chaperones,” Mrs Dover replied severely. “Girls. Mr Dover. We shall await them in the drawing room. Now.”
With a helpless glance toward Elsabeth, Rosamund and Mr Dover rose and followed the rest of the family out of the dining room. Mr Cox made much of presenting himself well: he straightened his collar, brushed his lapels, and finally turned what he no doubt fondly imagined as a winsome smile at Elsabeth, who in alarmed response proclaimed, “I feel I must go for a walk in the garden,” as loudly as she dared. Without further warning, she darted through the kitchen and out the door with the desperate hope that rescue might await her outside in the form of her father, whom she trusted had been listening at the dining room door with the rest of the family.
Mr Dover was nowhere to be seen. Elsabeth, faint with dread, struck out through the garden regardless, hoping against hope that she could lose Mr Cox in the twists and turns. But Oakden’s gardens were not the tangled deep things that Newsbury’s were, much less some truly grand manor such as Streyfield was rumoured to be. Mr Cox, once again proving quicker on his feet than a man of his size might be expected to be, chased her hither and yon throughout the gardens, laughing merrily about the games she played, whilst Elsabeth herself grew more frantic and determined to escape. Not until she found herself backed into a corner of half-wild hedges littered with late blooms did she cease her retreat, and, standing there, trembling, she thought that the flowers’ rich, sweet scents were cloying, as if a poisoned trap themselves.
Now certain she could not flee again, Mr Cox once more went through the motions of beautifying himself: his hat, removed, lent the opportunity to smooth back thick, greasy hair, and his breath, although checked, smelled of breakfast sausages. Elsabeth wilted against the flowers before catching the defeat in her own posture and defiantly straightening again.
Cox performed an ingratiating smile, but did not, to her great relief, go so far as to kneel. “Miss Elsabeth, I know my own heart and I believe that I know yours. It is incumbent upon me to marry, and—”
“Mr Cox,” Elsa said desperately, but before she could go on, behind Cox, a footstep fell upon the grass nearby. Elsabeth’s gaze darted that way, widened, and before wisdom could prevail, she caught Cox’s hand in her own and offered him a blinding smile of her own. “Mr Cox, I can only commend you for the sensibility of spirit that moves you to beg my approval before making your proposal. I know that it is your own shyness that sends you to me to seek verification that your suit should be accepted, and it gives me all happiness to—”
Before she completed this statement to a befuddled Reginald Cox, Elsabeth looked once more beyond him, to where Ruth Dover, with her hair worn loose in ringlets and her form bedecked in one of Matilda’s prettiest gowns, stood with both hands clenched in anticipation of thwarted desire. Her eyes, though, were round with hope behind their spectacles, and at Elsa’s querying glance, she gave a single fierce nod of acquiescence.
“—all happiness,” Elsabeth repeated joyfully, “to tell you that I am quite certain that my darling sister Ruth is as fond of you as you are about to profess to me that you are of her. She stands behind you now as a vision of your future, and I must away, but not too far, that I might be the very first to wish you all due felicitations. To wish it to both of you,” Elsa whispered, and, as she turned the astonished Mr Cox to face Ruth, she found a great love welling up from her soul and bringing tears of joy to her eyes.
Before Cox had recovered himself, Elsabeth skipped past him to catch Ruth’s hands and fold them to her bosom in a sign of greater sisterly affection than she could remember sharing with Ruth since they were children. “You are happy?” she whispered. “This is what you want?”
Ruth’s smile was not so much of joy as triumph. “I have no use for the Hartnells of this world,” she responded in equally soft kind, “and the Webbers have no use for me. But this one I can make a husband of, Elsabeth, and it shall be very well for both of us. I shall have a household of my own, children to care for, books to read and a proper lady to learn from. This is precisely what I want.”
“Then I shall go tell Father to expect a knock on his study door and to be polite about it,” Elsabeth replied happily, and tripped lightly away with only a single backward glance to see Mr Cox rearranging his expectations and desires as easily now as he had when told that Rosamund was shortly to be engaged. Indeed, gazing at the third Miss Dover, Mr Cox recalled Ruth’s solemnity, her intellect, her proper manners and how often he had come gallantly to her rescue in the past two weeks; by the time Elsabeth slipped away through the garden, he was quite convinced he had been in love with Ruth all along, and that Miss Elsabeth’s interpretation of his approaching her was the only possible one.
Mr Dover, when presented with this intelligence a few minutes later, peered at his favourite daughter so assiduously that he was obliged to remove and replace his reading glasses twice before he could speak. “Forgive me, my dear Elsabeth, but I think I could not have heard you correctly. Ruth is what?”
“By now, I should think she is well engaged to Mr Cox, Papa, and she is happy.”
“But Mr Cox is...is...is so...” Mr Dover’s imagination failed him before a certain truth set in. “Then again, Ruth is also...is very...”
“I believe they may be perfectly suited for one another, Papa. And is it not the most perfect solution to all our problems? Mr Cox shall remain in Lady Derrington’s parish and Ruth’s son will inherit Oakden! It shall remain in our family, close to our family, after all, and poor Mamma’s nerves will finally be settled.”
“On the contrary,” Mr Dover said drily, “I believe Mrs Dover’s nerves will be entirely alight. She shall have to keep Tildy to herself now, so that someone will be here to care for us in our dotage. Dina will suffer an apoplexy, one part over losing Tildy and two parts over Ruth—Ruth!—marrying before she does, never mind that Ruth is nineteen and certainly old enough to be wed, whereas Dina is fifteen and silly. Well. You had best go, my dear, so that the dreadful Mr Cox might come and plead, in his supercilious way, for the hand of my middle daughter.”
Elsabeth, positively buoyant with her own escape, departed her father’s library only to find Dina standing suspiciously close
to the door, and with a dangerous glint in her eyes. “Did you see Ruth, Elsa? I have never seen her look so pretty. I do not believe she can look so pretty! Is she using magic? Has she ensnared a husband through magic? What must I do to be wed? I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it, Elsabeth, I simply cannot bear it!”
“I saw her,” Elsa replied before the brunt of Dina’s complaint broke free. Well before it had reached its peak, Elsabeth caught her youngest sister’s upper arm and propelled her through the house and up the stairs to the room Dina shared with Tildy and Ruth. “Hush. Hush! No, of course she has not used magic, Leopoldina! She has only loosened her hair and begun to dress more attractively. You should know better than any of us that glamours and charms of that nature do not work!”
This unpleasant truth stole the strength from Dina’s tantrum; she, of all the Dover girls, had tried time and again as a child to make herself look older or influence her parents’ decisions through the use of magic. She had only given up the attempts in the past year or two, sullenly demanding what good magic was, if it couldn’t cast charms or change minds. Mr Dover, in a rare show of obvious power, had engendered a tiny rainstorm directly above Dina’s head and murmured, “Perhaps it is merely useful to ensure a fine crop for the...wine.” Dina, abruptly made aware that she was indeed whining, and shocked by Mr Dover’s blatancy, had lapsed into silence and had not since spoken of emotional enchantments.
“But Ruth,” she said now, in a tone of such despair that Elsabeth was inclined to laugh at it.
“We must consider Ruth, and ourselves, very fortunate, Dina. Oakden will stay with us now, and Ruth is happy. You would not be happy with Mr Cox. Better to find a man who will please you than rush into marriage simply to be a Mrs before any of your sisters.”
“You will all be married before me,” Leopoldina said dismally. “Rosamund is practically engaged and you are fashionably tall and slim and Ruth is to be wed and Tildy...” Her litany died away as she considered Tildy’s prospects. Finding them to be no better than her own, she brightened a little, and Elsabeth, laughing, drew her into an embrace.
“We shall all find what makes us happiest, Dina. We shall all be so graced. I believe this,” Elsa murmured, and snapped her fingers to call up a dance of flame upon their tips, “because we are all too much like ourselves to accept anything else.”
Dina gave a glad gasp of surprise and clapped her hand over Elsabeth’s fingertips. “Elsa!”
“Shh. It will be our secret. Now”—Elsabeth stood and pulled Dina to her feet—“let us go and congratulate Ruth, who deserves our happiness.”
(27)
In no wise did Leopoldina Dover believe that Ruth, however prim and dull she might find her, did not deserve happiness. Indeed, Dina did not think that far at all: despite Elsabeth’s ministrations, she saw little other than the incontestable fact that Ruth was to be married and she was not. The only acceptable aspect of Ruth’s engagement was that Mr Cox, having settled the matter to his own satisfaction, had departed for his vicarage; as to the rest, something must be done. If Captain Hartnell, the still-desired object of her affections, had had his head turned by an older sister, surely it was Leopoldina herself who had drawn his attention originally. Having done so once, she could certainly do it again and, in so doing, secure her own marriage to the dashing young captain. Elsabeth, she consoled herself, would not be long broken-hearted, for Elsabeth was never long sorrowful over anything for any reason.
These were the thoughts that occupied her as the family Dover bustled about in preparation for Ruth’s marriage. To Bodton and back again; to the Enton estate for shared gossip; to dinners and luncheons and walks held with Captain Hartnell, who paid ever-special attention to Elsabeth; to Newsbury, or at least, Rosamund to Newsbury with rarely more than Elsabeth as chaperone; to inevitability, Dina feared: three of her sisters would soon be wed, and one of them to the man she fancied for herself. And yet opportunity failed to arise: she dared not fling herself into a river again, and for all that the wind danced at her beckoning, wretched magic stood strong against the casting of glamours and sentimental attachments. Even beasts were insensible to such enchantments: Leopoldina could no more make a cat fond of her than she could Captain Hartnell.
And yet it was impossible to be sullen, with the promise of new gowns for Ruth’s wedding and the warm beauty of late summer heating Oakden. If Elsabeth could not long be unhappy, neither, it seemed, could Leopoldina, and, in her flighty way, she had almost forgotten her intentions when at long last opportunity presented itself. They were gone to town—Bodton, of course, not the luxurious dream that was London—to collect the promised gowns, upon which an unquestionable indulgence had been granted: the dressmaker had created them, rather than the fabric being purchased to be sewn at home. Dina’s heart lifted each time she thought of her new dress, and the journey from Oakden to Bodton was done in good spirits with much laughter as she and Tildy whispered secrets and dreams to one another.
They were fitted into their dresses first and regarded as successful; Ruth, who had very little pretty to begin with and who was the bride besides, was fussed over to a much greater degree, until Dina could bear it no longer and announced she would go for a walk, and return to admire Ruth’s success in a little while. Mrs Dover, beset by daughters, agreed to this proposal at once, and Dina slipped out into the heavy August afternoon.
She had gone very little distance before she regretted her choice: the air was oppressively still, with the sky gone the strange dark blue that promised no break in the weather for some time to come. Sound carried peculiarly in the thick air, slowing and stretching it, until what few voices there were, were distorted and unpleasant.
Walking briskly made some small pretense of wind, but made for considerably more perspiration, and she dared not awaken a breeze to cool herself when the whole of Bodton shimmered with undisturbed waves of heat. Even the river gave little sur- cease from the warmth; indeed, great swarms of late-summer biting flies buzzed and hung by the water as if lying in wait for anyone foolish enough to pass them by. Dina struck off up the bank to avoid them, wishing very much that she had stayed with her sisters at the dressmaker’s. The labors of her own ascent drowned out other sounds for a moment; when she became sensible to them again, it was to hear the prancing clop of hooves. Breathless, she paused beside the bridge to search out the rider, and in admiration saw that a coach-and-four some distance away moved in such unison as to sound like one animal. Glancing the other way, she saw in the town square the entire regiment, amongst whom Captain Hartnell must number, and, in an instant, she was decided.
With a whisper to the wind, she turned her back on the bridge and began to make her way toward the square as if all unknowing of the upcoming coach. The wind, at her bidding, swept up a great swarm of the biting flies and sped them across the river and down the road until they met, and fell to biting, the splendid set of four horses. One of them screamed with outrage, shocking even Leopoldina: she spun, as did each and every other body within hearing, and saw that the four were out of control with rage and pain. They stampeded: this had been Dina’s ill-conceived intent, but she had not thought clearly of their speed or strength or, most terribly, of the other denizens of Bodton who were out and about on this still and heavy day. She had thought only of herself, imagining in an instant the drama of a near-disaster, and how Captain Hartnell would emerge out of the regiment to take her in his arms and realise how he could not have lived without her.
But there were others nearby, children nearby, little ones curious enough to run toward, and not away, from the shrieking and panicked horses. They ran from shops, their mothers giving frightened chase; Dina herself snatched one up and ran after another, but the street was suddenly full of people, all trying to drag one another out of the way of runaway beasts. The horses’ hooves made their first clatter on the bridge: a handful of strides and they would be over it and into the town square, crushing all who were unfortunate enough to stand in their path.
Its destructive power embraced the centre of the Bodton bridge and ripped stone from stone, undoing masonry a century and more in age. The racing, terrified horses bucked and bent, struggling to stop their headlong rush when the road before them no longer existed; one, in its terror, leapt, but its partners did not, and the whole foursome was dragged forward by its weight. It, by pure fortune, caught the far side of the broken bridge with its hooves and heaved itself forward; its nearest brother struggled and surged, trying to stand beside its match, but even as they struggled together, the pair behind them, and the coach, fell into the broad gap at the heart of the bridge.
A second bellow sent more magic surging across the bridge. Below the bridge: beneath the fallen carriage, structured power seeking to build a surface on which the weight of the fallen coach could rest. Something in the shouted words spoke of lifting, just as the wind might lift a leaf, and Dina saw, quite clearly and quite suddenly, that it would not work. To lift a leaf upward the way this magic wished to lift the coach-and-four, it had to be directly beneath the leaf, and the spellcaster was in the town square.
Calmly, as if thinking it through, Leopoldina placed the child she held in someone else’s arms and slid down the bank again to walk steadily into the river. It did not capture her the way it had in the early summer; its waters ran lower now, reaching no higher than her waist, and, in a few resolute surges, she was nearly beneath the struggling coach-and-four.