“Same time, same place, Mr Jones!”
15th July 1808 11 o’clock
“Miss Smith.”
“Mr Jones.”
That was how our third annual encounter began.
The young lady had matured to the point where I no longer considered her excessively young. She was eight years my junior, but I had to admit that plenty of young debutants of her age had been thrust in my direction, much to my disquiet. I was not the least bit interested in a girl her age, but I could see she would mature into a pretty and engaging woman in time.
“If I recall correctly, you should be coming up on seventeen in a fortnight. Has the dreaded event occurred?” I asked, wondering whether I would get the aggressiveness of the first year, the impertinence of the second, or something new.
She laughed, and I appreciated the sound of it, especially since my second season of supposed wife hunting was going about as well as the first. My aunt, Lady Matlock, while under the influence of a startling amount of cherry, boldly declared, ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.’
As for myself, perhaps I would one day be in want of a wife, but not that day, or any day soon. I had plenty to keep me busy. I had a few friends, though most came with unfortunate appendages in the form of unwed relatives. Such was the cost of my privilege, and I paid it either gladly or grudgingly, depending on how much I liked the friend and how clingy said relatives were.
She finally stopped laughing long enough to answer.
“Yes, the dreaded event has occurred, with somewhat surprising results.”
“Which are?” I was dying to know.
“Would you care for the good or the bad?”
“Both, I should imagine. Let us start with the good.”
She chuckled again, and her same farm boy went back to the same chair from the previous year and looked like he would go to sleep the same as he had before. I had slipped him the princely sum of a crown both previous years, so I assumed he thought highly of me… or at least, highly enough to avoid stopping me from doing it again. It was not every day a farm boy got a month’s wages or more for a few hours of the easiest work of his life, and I wished him well with the proceeds.
“I enjoy balls, dancing, and most of the things I was missing. We live in a small community, so being out basically just means boys must watch their manners when they dance with me.”
“I see. Any beaus?”
She sighed resignedly. “They are rare as hen’s teeth in our village. Even my elder sister remains unwed. It is astonishing, really. She is as beautiful as I already mentioned, but she is also the kindest person I ever met. She never thinks poorly of anybody, and yet—”
I decided to see if I could get the hellion back.
“I suppose her indolent parents, surfeit of sisters, and lack of dowry does not help… or at least, I assume you would not be meeting me if you had one.”
Instead of the hellion, she just got sad, and I wanted to kick myself.
“You are correct, sir. All we have is our meagre charms to recommend us.”
“Not as meagre as you might think,” I said honestly.
She shrugged, as if the point were not worth debating, or more likely she suspected I was humouring her, so I tried another tack.
“I told you at fourteen you have no way to know what a beauty you might become. I stand by that. You are well on your way.”
That was probably the flirtiest thing I had ever said to any woman, though it was the most honest.
She showed her mercurial nature by lighting up like the sun again. “Why thank you, Mr Jack Jones!”
I laughed along, our good humour restored. She was obviously nowhere near ready for marriage, so I thought it premature to even discuss such a subject—not thatanythingI did in that room was the least bit proper.
“What is the bad part of being out, if I may ask.”
“The taaaaaallllking,” she said morosely. “Every event requires discussions about where it is, and who might be there, and what we will wear, and what people will do, and who said what about whom, and all of those are repeated a dozen times or more, in half a dozen drawing rooms. After the event we do the same in reverse. Then when we are barely finished picking over the bones of that, another is announced. It is exhausting!”
