Page 38 of A Sorceress Comes to Call
“I remember it well,” Evermore said. “The lady’s shriek shook dust from the rafters. The soprano was positively anticlimactic afterward.”
“Two days later, half the women in the city were carrying a snuffbox,” Hester said, shaking her head.
“I’ve always found snuff to be a filthy habit,” said Evangeline coolly.
“Oh, absolutely vile,” Hester agreed. “The one time I did it, I had such a sneezing fit. And Richard here had the gall to laugh at me.” She thumped his shin with her cane again.
“You sounded like a tree frog,” said Richard. “Eh-chee! Eh-chee! Eh-chee! All high-pitched and run together. It was adorable. Well, it would have been, if you weren’t turning as green as a tree frog, too.”
“Hmmph!” Hester nodded to Cordelia. “Let that be a lesson to you, my young friend. If you are going to take snuff, never do it in front of a man. At least not the first time.”
“Applies to cigars as well,” said Evermore.
“Cordelia,” said her mother blightingly, “would never do anything so unladylike.”
Cordelia had only the vaguest idea what was in snuff anyway, but couldn’t imagine snorting something that looked so much like finely ground horse droppings. “No, Mother,” she murmured.
“I am surprised that so many mothers allowed their daughters to even carry snuffboxes.”
“Oh, well, it was all in good fun,” said Hester. “I doubt many of them had the faintest idea how to take the stuff. But for a month or two, you positively had to be seen with one. Fashion, you know.”
Evangeline’s mouth curved down, and then, to Cordelia’s intense relief, the bell rang calling them in to dinner.
Unfortunately dinner itself proved no relief. “Is there a Mr. Green?” Evangeline asked Penelope pleasantly. The women were seated on either side of the Squire. Cordelia wondered if anyone else could see how hard her mother’s eyes were when she said it, like cold blue glass.
“Sadly no,” said Penelope, shaking her head. She put a hand to her heart. Cordelia saw the Squire’s eyes travel along her arm to her cleavage, accented in a square bodice that Mrs. Tan would definitely have said was not in fashion. “Poor man. He was a great friend of Samuel’s.”
“Eh? Oh, yes,” said the Squire. “A great gun, old Silas was. Terrible loss.”
“You understand, of course,” said Penelope, smiling sadly at Evangeline.
Evangeline inclined her head. “It was so long ago,” she said. “I remember him fondly, but truly it seems as if it belonged to another life.”
“That’s lovely to hear. We widows so often find ourselves in such a precarious state.”
“Oh yes. Though my lord was good enough to provide for his family.”
Cordelia wondered if that had been an insult. It had felt like one, somehow. But Penelope Green only laughed and said, “Poor old Silas was never much good at such things. The most charming man you’d ever meet, but he never thought ahead. Do you remember, Samuel, that time on the hunt that he jumped the hedge when you yelled at him not to?”
“The damn fool,” said the Squire, with clear affection. “Swore his horse could clear it. And it did, too, just barely.”
“I’m sure the bull in the field was very impressed,” said Penelope, with a bubbling laugh. “I know that horse came back over the hedge like his tail was on fire. Now that was a clean jump.” The two of them joined in laughing, and Cordelia stared at her napkin so that she didn’t have to watch her mother’s eyes get colder still.
Hester stood out on the balcony in the late evening, listening to the breeze sigh through the old chestnut trees below.
She was not quite ready to retire for the evening, but she also did not wish to climb the flight of steps down to the library. If only my illustrious ancestors had designed a home with everything on the ground floor. I wonder if any of them eventually regretted it, once their knees started to go?
Her compromise at such times was the balcony off the dining room. Dinner had been cleared away, and all the guests had retired to their own amusements. Hester had done her proper duty as a hostess, and now she could stand on the balcony and stare out over the trees while the stars came out, one by one.
She had just performed the mental calculation of whether sitting down would be worth getting up again, and decided that it was too cold to linger for long, when arms went around her. Her mind tried to be startled, but her body knew exactly who it was. She leaned back against him despite herself. “Richard.”
He kissed the top of her head. Hester was perfectly aware that hair didn’t have any nerves, and anyway there was a little lace cap between his lips and the hair in question, and she still felt it all the way down to her bones. She sighed again.
Her body wanted to relax, to melt against him like warm butter. Her body was an idiot. She told it sternly that there would be absolutely no melting.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
“Bah. You can’t have. An eligible bachelor with a fortune? You must be knee-deep in marriageable young ladies.”
