by Van Reid
“His wife?”
Cordelia took her fiancé’s arm, and Priscilla was drawn, by dint of having been left alone, back into her mother’s orbit. Grace latched on to her daughter as if she would not let go of her the rest of the evening. “Miss McCannon and Mister Walton were married on Saturday,” said Cordelia, who had added up the elements of this meeting very quickly, not the least portion having been Dresden’s obvious suspicion of the silver-haired man.
“I’m Sundry Moss,” said the younger man. He reached out his hand.
Thistlecoat was not in a position to refuse a handshake, but he hid his shock at the young woman’s news and took Sundry’s hand with a striking display of condescension and said, “Aren’t you Walton’s driver or something?”
The orchestra had picked up the first waltz of the evening and the ballroom hummed with conversation from a dozen circles, but in the immediate vicinity a hard silence faced Thistlecoat in the wake of his words. Cordelia took a breath, and Dresden pressed her arm to warn her from jumping in before Mr. Moss had the opportunity to respond. The members of the club continued to look perplexed, and Priscilla Morningside looked horrified, but her mother had the appearance of someone who had found an ally.
Sundry did not flinch. “My duties have often fallen under that title,” he said, sounding and looking positively Waltonesque, his expression so mild and unoffended that clearly it was an honor for him to admit to such service.
At this point Grace had profited by two things, the first being the repossession of her daughter. To the other constituent of her sudden fortune she said, “I am a little weary. Would you mind terribly finding me a seat?”
Thistlecoat gave a bow, took Grace’s unoccupied arm, and escorted her and, by association (and her mother’s firm grip), Priscilla to the chairs at the perimeter of the ballroom. Priscilla hardly dared look back at her cousin for fear of precipitating a scene. In a moment the three were ensconced in the relative shadow between two pillars.
“How extraordinary!” said Ephram. He and his fellow members were perplexed by these swift events and conversation. “What do you think, Eagleton?”
“I do, yes!” said that worthy.
“Thump?”
“Hmmm?” said the bearded fellow.
Where are Mom and Daddy? wondered Cordelia. She was certain that her mother could have prevented this. “Mr. Moss,” said Cordelia, and an entire train of heartfelt verbiage was ready to spill from her when Dresden renewed his grip upon her arm.
“You must allow me to attempt one of these dances you’ve made me practice,” Dresden said to her. She looked up at him, but her fiancé shook his head and knitted his brow as if he knew something she didn’t. What he guessed about Sundry Moss he might not have realized about himself.
While Priscilla walked away, Sundry experienced a lapsed sense of time; weighing upon him was an entire evening of lonely possibility, the prominent detail of which was that he might not talk with the dark haired young woman again, or stand beside her, or even watch her from anything but a distance—not just tonight but forever. He had been tested and he had returned his best (and perhaps the best he could have returned), yet she was walking away.
In for a penny, he thought. He clasped his hands behind him in the most casual fashion, lifted his chin just a bit, and said to the small gathering, “Excuse me.” Then he strode in time with the “Emperor’s Waltz” toward Thistlecoat and the seated women.
“Oh, my,” said Cordelia. She put a hand to her breast and resembled her aunt Grace just a little bit.
“Give him a chance,” said Dresden, now that Sundry was out of hearing.
“What makes you so smart?” she asked him with a smile.
“I don’t know that I was till I met you.”
“Good heavens!” said Eagleton. He was not very sure what Mr. Moss was doing, and he was vaguely aware that Miss Underwood and Mr. Scott were making love in a subtle way.
“Yes, indeed!” said Ephram.
“Hmmm!” said Thump. He had been watching the engaged couple with a sentimental affection, but now his ears were red.
“Punch, perhaps!” said Ephram.
“Bravo, Ephram!”
“Thank you, Eagleton. Thump?”
“Very good.”
The room was filled with people. The music had altered in tone. A schottische had begun.
The ballroom floor seemed to stretch out before Sundry, and that lapsed sense of time he had experienced compressed into a hard lump that lodged in his chest. His heart was pounding. Priscilla saw him first; she sat up straight and looked at her mother and Mr. Thistlecoat, then looked down at her feet, and finally looked back at Sundry. Thistlecoat was describing his business ventures to Mrs. Morningside and also tendering advice about investments when Sundry drew close enough to speak. “Miss Morningside,” he said brightly, “you were asking about the wedding.”
“Yes!” said Priscilla emphatically—somewhere between hope and fear. “I was.”
To lay credit where it was due, Charleston Thistlecoat took in this situation and responded with perfect ease—all in a heartbeat. If he had missed Sundry’s interest in Miss Morningside before, he realized it now in the instant, and also Mrs. Morningside’s opinion of it. He said, “Mr. Moss, be so good as to get a cup of punch for Mrs. Morningside and one for myself.”
Priscilla let out a small, hurt sound. Even Grace was startled, but she cleared all evidence of this from her face and gave a single nod. She understood how poorly she was acting yet seemed to have no power to stop herself. There was something very unhappy lying beneath her calm faÇade, and her cheeks grew red.
Sundry did not suffer a cloud to pass over his face. He had learned well from Mister Walton the power of a direct and magnanimous reply, and Thistlecoat, he was sure, had overplayed his hand. “I’d be very glad to,” said Sundry, and as soon as his gray-haired opponent expressed mute surprise and then patronizing approval, Sundry said, “Miss Morningside, would you care for some punch?”
There was a moment of electric stillness among this quartet as something like confidence claimed the expression on Priscilla’s face. “Yes, I would, thank you,” she said, then added, “But you will be thirsty, too. Let me go with you, and I can help you carry my mother’s drink.” She turned to the elegant man seated beside Grace. “And Mr. Thistlecoat’s.”
Grace’s mouth hung open. Thistlecoat looked stunned.
Priscilla stood and gathered her dress. Sundry thought there had been tears in her eyes, but now she smiled, her head tilted just a bit to one side. He offered his arm and she took it. Nearby clusters of people watched them as they moved across the floor. The floor had filled with dancers, and Sundry and Priscilla wove their way past several couples, almost dancing themselves. Sundry said something that made Priscilla smile again. They disappeared beyond the dancers and groups of conversation on the other side of the room.
“I’m terribly sorry about that,” said Priscilla, walking with her head down to hide her emotions.
“You needn’t be,” said Sundry. He was interested that, having employed a Waltonian strategy against Mr. Thistlecoat, he couldn’t be angry with the fellow. It helped, of course, to have Miss Morningside on his arm.
“Oh, but I must,” she replied. “My father would have said that Mr. Thistlecoat is all manners and no courtesy.”
“That’s very good,” said Sundry. They stopped as a knot of dancers passed by or perhaps so that they might have this exchange behind them before they went further. She had let go of his arm. “Mr. Thistlecoat had shown some interest in Miss McCannon,” he said, “and I am guessing that he holds Mister Walton’s success with her against me.”
Priscilla smiled at this convoluted logic. “Then he has only proven, after the fact, that she chose the best man,” she said.
Sundry almost said, “That’s very good,” again, but instead said, “I’m glad you came with me. I might get lost in this crowd.”
Priscilla took his arm agai
n and said, “I might not be of any help in that case. I’m not used to so many people.”
“I’m used to more cows than people,” said Sundry as they recommenced their progress across the ballroom. He wondered, for a moment, if he had gone too far with his self-deprecation, but when he turned to Miss Morningside, she was smiling. Though he hardly knew it, his selfimage as a farm boy was at odds with his debonair appearance tonight. “At any rate,” he added, “if we do get lost, I’ll be in good company.”
Miss Morningside bent her head, still smiling, so that there was a secretive look to her, though whatever secret she did have just then was kept only from him.
It would have been simple enough to keep anything from Sundry that evening, his well-documented powers of observation having been overwhelmed by the young woman on his arm. It was true, too, that he was not accustomed to such a press of people, and though he had spent time on the streets of Portland and wandered the crowded docks, there was something altogether focused about the mob at Mrs. Morrell’s Annual Charitable Ball that demanded a level of attention he could not quite muster.
“I don’t think he really did want punch,” Miss Morningside was saying with more irony than was probably common to her.
“I beg your pardon?” said Sundry.
“I don’t think that Mr. Thistlecoat really did want punch.”
“But we should be sure to bring your mother some,” he said.
Miss Morningside saw something past Sundry. “There’s Cord and Dresden,” she said. “I’m going to ask her to bring it to them.”
Sundry was on the verge of objecting. He could hear Mister Walton’s voice saying, “Not at all. I’d be very glad to get it.” But a moment ago Miss Morningside had appeared almost as out of her element as Sundry felt. She had seemed bewildered and uncertain, as if she did not belong among these people or in that magnificent dress. She seemed like a girl in women’s clothes, and looking at her, Sundry had felt a pang of sympathy that was not entirely comfortable.
Now, crossing toward her cousin with renewed self-possession, she seemed born to that dress and whatever circle she chose to occupy. Decision had lifted her sweet, bespectacled face, and a sense of right had given her otherwise careful step a level of confidence. Yet she demurely held one hand in the other, like a student preparing a speech, and tilted her head a little as she considered what she was going to say to her cousin, and these visible chinks in her poise made that poise the more admirable. Sundry was startled into following her by the sudden conviction that another fellow was bound to intercept her before he had the chance to occupy her dance card.
Grace waited with growing anxiety, only half hearing Thistlecoat’s running commentary about those members of Portland’s elite who passed before them. He attempted a witticism or two and eventually scrambled from his confusion and retrieved his usual self.
In a few minutes Cordelia appeared with two cups of punch in her hands. She presented these to her aunt and Charleston Thistlecoat without a smile. “Your punch, Auntie,” she said. “Mr. Thistlecoat.”
“Thank you,” said Charleston stiffly.
Cordelia gave her aunt a stern look, but she reached down and squeezed Grace’s hand and said, “Come join us when you are rested up.”
16. A First Time for Everything
“Hasn’t our chairman made mention of a Mr. Thistlecoat?” said Eagleton as he and his fellow members of the club voyaged the perimeter of the ballroom, their progress slowed by the numbers of gentlemen to whom they must nod and ladies who must receive a full stop and a bow.
“I believe he has,” said Ephram.
“I was a little unsure what Mr. Thistlecoat meant about the Moosepath and amenities,” said Eagleton, “but I am sorry if he thought we were wearying Mrs. Morningside.”
“Yes,” said Ephram. A sloe-eyed beauty holding court by the door had just touched him with her gaze, and she made some sport of watching him and his two friends pass rather than pay attention to the man who was talking to her. “That is troubling,” said Ephram, perhaps as addendum to his previous agreement.
“She did appear weary,” voiced Thump. He looked up to find that his friends had got some paces ahead of him and hurried after. “Though I do not mean to imply that she wasn’t entirely presentable,” he finished.
The music had shifted from waltz to schottische, and some people had the impression that these three were bustling to secure themselves dance partners. One man stepped from the milling crowd alongside the dance floor and looked after Eagleton and Ephram. “Whom are they in pursuit of?” he wondered aloud. Thump nearly ran down this curious onlooker, excused himself, and hurried on.
“She is a lovely woman,” Ephram was saying over his shoulder, though the last of this sentence was actually delivered to the fore as he looked ahead to be sure of where he was going. The words lovely woman, amplified by the breath required to produce his present stride, carried over a nearby clutch of social aristocrats beside the punch table, and several members of the gentler sex who thought these syllables best described themselves turned to see who had been blessed with such profound discernment.
“What a nice thing to say,” said one lady to Ephram with more humor than conviction. Of possibly advanced middle age, she made up for any physical loss, consequent to her years, with a sure knowledge of what might capture a gentleman’s regard and a cultivated manner that was expert at putting that knowledge into action. She did seem to fit the phrase lovely woman rather well, and she raised a careless hand toward Ephram, who was himself broad-shouldered, square-jawed, and a good deal more handsome than he ever suspected. “And, yes,” she said, “I will be pleased to put your name on my dance card.”
Something of Ephram’s recent training at Mrs. De Riche’s Academy of Ballroom Sciences (and his deeply ingrained sense of chivalry) took charge of his subsequent behavior; he straightened his posture, took the offered hand, and bent over it as if he might place his lips upon it.
“Oh, my!” said Eagleton. Past his friend was a pair of gray-blue eyes attached to a soft smile, which was attached to a grande dame who stood beside Ephram’s lovely lady. He said, “Oh, my!” again.
“Hmmm?” came a voice from behind Eagleton.
The lovely lady gave Ephram the benefit of an artfully arched eyebrow.
“Matthew Ephram,” he said in a range slightly higher than was normal for him. “And this is my friend and fellow club member Christopher Eagleton. And here is also my friend and fellow club member Joseph Thump.”
“Charmed,” said the woman, without releasing Ephram’s hand but turning that languorous gaze upon him.
“Are you?” said Ephram. In his confusion, he thought perhaps that this was her name. “Twenty minutes before the hour of nine,” he informed her.
“You’re members of the Moosepath League,” said one of the other ladies.
The woman in charge of Ephram produced a dance card from a nook in her garments that he did not see fit to contemplate. She considered this document and, as it was almost filled up, put it back and retrieved a second card that was as yet unsullied by any man’s signature. “My goodness!” she said. “You seem to be first on the list.”
“Am I?” said Ephram, whose vocal range had risen an octave or two. Eagleton was forecasting the weather to one of the other ladies, and from outside Ephram’s immediate view, Thump’s voice rumbled to someone the hour of the coming high tide.
“Now you must wait with me for the next dance,” said the woman.
“Must I?” said Ephram. “I mean, certainly ... Miss—?”
“Mrs.” she informed him.
“Charmed,” he said by way of address, and bowed again.
That exquisite eyebrow lifted once again, and when the schottische came to an end and the applause died, Ephram had hardly moved.
A waltz commenced, and Ephram found himself walking with the lovely lady onto the dance floor. Since graduating from Mrs. De Riche’s institution, he had attended more than two doze
n dance functions with Eagleton and Thump, but not till this moment had he ever actually exercised what he had practiced. Stiffly, and with no small sense of horror, he placed one hand in the general vicinity of Mrs. Charmed’s waist, though about six or seven inches away from actual contact. He allowed her to take hold of his other hand and looked, for a bit, like a music box figure whose function is to twirl in place slowly. He was perplexed by the swirl of dancers about him. He even had the odd perception that Eagleton and Thump had pivoted past him, each in the close company of one of the ladies from the punch table.
After a bit he did shift his posture, though it might be considered an exaggeration to say that he relaxed. Mrs. Charmed had a way of moving—her hip in particular—that caused herself to come into contact with Ephram’s hand. “I beg your pardon,” he said when this occurred.
“Please don’t,” she said lightly. She smiled.
Ephram swallowed. He was attempting to reconcile the name she had given him. “Mrs. Charmed?” he said, testing out the appellation.
She widened her eyes to indicate that she hadn’t heard him.
“Mrs.—” he began.
She turned her ear close to his mouth.
“Charmed!” he said, more loudly than he had intended.
“You dear man,” she said, “I will have to believe you if you are going to keep repeating it.”
17. Principals in Play
Apart from her duties as hostess, the course of the evening for Tabitha Morrell was largely dictated by her desire to see her daughter, Fredrica, shown off in the best possible illumination, real and figurative. She had instructed her daughter on the most complimentary distance to stand from the nearest source of light and also how to stand so that the shadows (however vague) did no injustice to her pretty features.
Tabitha herself was more handsome than beautiful and had secured her own position in Philbrook Morrell’s heart and home by way of disposition as much as appearance. There were women of much greater beauty who wore the trappings of wealth with a good deal less poise than Tabitha Brownlow Morrell. Contrarily, Fredrica was born with more beauty and less poise, though Tabitha was of the opinion that the young beaux today were less sophisticated than her husband’s generation and consequently more readily prevailed upon by a pretty face. Several prospective suitors hovered about Fredrica, and the daughter was indeed looking pretty, if pretty well aware of it.
