THE THREE JACKSONS, THE TWO TILSONS, AND MR. SEYMOUR ARRIVED before Henry Austen. As we made small talk in the drawing room, my concern mounting about the duck’s chances of ending up overcooked, I was struck by a reserve in how my guests were conversing. It made me suspect that Henry was the thread that linked them, that they had little to say to each other in his absence. Or was this just how people were? Liam was doing his best to keep the conversation alive, but Henry’s lateness had become the general topic by the time he showed up, and my concerns had widened from overdone duck to dinner more generally.
He was elegant as ever but ruffled, in clothes and manner. “A tiresome business at the bank that could not be put off; I must beg forgiveness.” A look passed between himself and Mr. Tilson before he turned to me and bowed over my hand. “I must beg it of you in particular, Miss Ravenswood.” Our glances locked, and I thought of the last time we had met in this room.
“There is nothing to forgive,” I said and, remembering I had said just the same thing then, blushed. The way he was looking at me suggested he was remembering it too. “And why distinguish me, when all have been united in concern for you?”
“But the others were not giving their first dinner in London. The others were not anxious that anything should mar the perfection of the occasion or the splendor of the mutton.”
I could not help smiling at this. “If I seem anxious, it was only on your behalf. We feared some mischance had overtaken you.”
“Precisely why I am so repentant. A hostess has a thousand details to worry her, without her guests adding to them.”
“You are here; that is all that matters.” I thought I saw a yellow tinge to his skin and to the whites of his eyes, but perhaps it was a trick of the light. “And your health, sir? Are you quite well?”
“You are as much the physician as your brother.”
“Even more, perhaps. But you do not answer my question.”
“I am well, I thank you” was all I got, and it was time to go in to dinner.
“SETTING UP A CARRIAGE! HOW DELIGHTFUL!” THE GENTLEMEN had many questions, which I was happy to let Liam take as my eyes roamed the faces of my guests, wondering if they liked the food—I was too keyed up to have a sense of taste—and if our new footman, Robert, moved with sufficient grace. Under the judgmental eye of Jencks, who was in charge of the wine, Robert cleared the first course swiftly and put everything for the second just where I had told him it should go, while managing to be both tall and handsome; Liam had hired well. No liquids had slopped onto the rims of the plates; everything was roughly the right temperature and not too badly overcooked, considering. Even better, people were talking more unrestrainedly than they had been before we sat down.
As hostess, I was at the head of the table, and Liam at the foot. Guests chose their own seats, as was the custom; Henry had managed to place himself at my right. The elder Miss Jackson, Eleanor, had taken the seat across from him, which was fascinating and awkward too. Because I knew she would marry Henry Austen in 1820, I could not help suspecting she had designs on him already. I was terrible at estimating ages here, but supposed her to be around my own age or perhaps a little younger, verging into spinster territory. She was attractive, with large dark eyes and a handsome profile that she kept emphasizing by looking sideways at Henry, with the result that she was continually turning her cool stare on me, or else showing me the back of her graceful neck. I got no sense of her personality: all questions I put to her were answered as briefly as possible. Henry, who definitely looked slightly unwell, kept talking to me, then lapsing into uncharacteristic silence as Miss Jackson eyed him sideways.
I glanced down the table in search of relief; Mr. Seymour, a lawyer friend of Henry’s, had begun asking Liam about the legal technicalities of manumitting a slave. Liam was replying with an impressive mastery of detail, but was having trouble turning the conversation to something of more general interest, while I could see Mrs. Tilson getting silently pink and annoyed at the very notion of slavery. Her husband was focused on eating. Mr. Jackson, large and genial, was talking to Mr. Tilson about enclosure, while the younger Miss Jackson, Henrietta, a petite woman with red hair, kept casting admiring looks in the direction of Liam and Mr. Seymour, making me wonder if she had resolved to marry one of them, though Mr. Seymour was portly and well past forty, and Liam out of reach for reasons she could not imagine. But how ghastly to be a woman here, I thought, as I realized that even I, who should know better, was thinking of them only in reference to men: those they would marry, or those they might wish to.
Robert was clearing the second course; port and nuts and dried fruit came out. Soon, the moment when I would have to stand and lead the ladies upstairs to the drawing room. I caught the eye of Mrs. Tilson down the table; she gave me a tiny nod and a smile. I stood up, saying: “If you will, ladies,” then wished I had said something more memorable, but it worked.
I TRIED AGAIN TO DRAW OUT MISS JACKSON, BUT SHE WAS EVEN more reserved than at dinner, further evidence that she viewed me as her rival. Since I was powerless to reassure her that she would triumph in the end, I gave up and turned to Mrs. Tilson. Suddenly talkative now that it was just ladies, she began telling me about an abolitionist friend of hers who had had the astonishing honor of meeting William Wilberforce, renowned parliamentarian and anti-slave-trade crusader, a few days earlier.
“What was he like then, your Mr. Wilberforce? Would your friend call him agreeable? Or does he exude the air of fanaticism?” I put a hand to my mouth. Wilberforce, like Mrs. Tilson, was an Evangelical, one of the born-again Christians whose zeal often annoyed the less enthusiastically devout. Had I just implied that she was also a fanatic?
Mrs. Tilson only looked heavenward. “Such a man, I can hardly begin to describe. Such amiability, such conversation, and yet such moral seriousness and faith. That is what Mrs. Seagrave said, at least.”
“Mayhap you will meet him yourself someday, madam.”
“Oh! It would be more than I could contemplate.”
AFTER A TIME, WE HEARD VOICES AND LAUGHTER AND FOOTSTEPS on the stairs: the men. My back was to the door, but I sensed the arrival of Henry by the way the gaze of Miss Jackson turned in that direction and then dropped. She was talking with her sister a little distance from Mrs. Tilson and me. Would he approach her?
No; he walked up to me. “I would apologize, once more, for my lateness.”