Rules for Engagements

by Laura Briggs

  "The carriage is waitin', Miss," Dill the maid announced, appearing in the doorway with a curtsy. Flora rose from the dressing table and smoothed her skirts.

  *****

  The hall was crowded, with Flora squeezed close to Mrs. Fitzwilliam in an effort to save her train from a misstep by the middle Miss Phillips. Mrs. Fitzwilliam had taken a great interest in the middle Miss Phillips lately, as she had revealed some days earlier. She planned to marry her off at the first opportunity to do so.

  "Is it not stuffy in here tonight?" Flora's aunt declared, taking a seat near the middle. "Take care of your dresses, girls, lest you be forced to mend them later."

  Mrs. Fitzwilliam surveyed the room in search of familiar faces, as Flora drew her fan and attempted to cool herself and Miss Phillips with its movement.

  "Why, there is Miss Harwick!" exclaimed Mrs. Fitzwilliam. "She is with the Eastons– over there." Her fan indicated a row on the other side of the room, where Hetta's feathers were visible on the other side of Lady Easton.

  "That is no surprise," said Miss Phillips. "For I believe she was escorted here in their carriage." She had drawn her fan out of hiding and was employing it with considerable speed.

  "Oh, ho," exclaimed Mrs. Fitzwilliam, "so Miss Harwick did not give up so easily after she failed to make an impression. Perhaps she shall be delaying her trip abroad to make a bridal wardrobe after all."

  Flora's fan had slowed to scarcely any movement. The heat washed over her face in waves, but it was not the heat of the concert room.

  So Miss Harwick was yet pursuing Roger. And if she had procured such favor as a seat in their carriage, who knew how far her connections extended? Perhaps beyond Lady Easton's kindness to the son's own attention.

  A pianoforte struck a chord at the front of the room. A soprano's voice sobbed a plaintive solo from Don Giovani as she clutched a long handkerchief in her gloved hands. Flora dragged her eyes away from the Easton's side of the hall to watch the performer.

  She could not help but see the movement of Miss Harwick's hand. Her face inclined towards Roger's as she whispered something, then slipped a piece of paper between his fingers. Despite the dim light, he unfolded the square.

  Flora's heart was pounding wildly. She could not bear to sit here for this, to watch their tete-a-tete taking place only a few feet away. Desperately, she rose and made her way from the room.

  In the entrance hall, she paused and leaned against a pillar to compose herself. She was being childish, jealous–all because a young woman had outwitted her and her silly little book.

  She felt a hand on her arm and turned to find Roger facing her.

  "Tell me what it means," he said. His voice was urgent, strained. In his hand, he held the piece of paper from the concert hall. "Explain it, Flora. Tell me I am mistaken in assuming it is yours."

  He pushed it into her hand. She unfolded it to reveal a creased, torn piece of paper marked with stains of earth and grass. Waves of handwriting appeared.

  I am resolved to do it. I am resolved to try my own advice against the charms of one Miss Hetta Harwick, as clever and beautiful as she may be. For it would be only too wrong of me to let Roger Easton suffer such a match–with a young lady of such reputation–after the friendship that was once between us long ago.

  Is it possible to secure a man's attention without touching his heart? I hope so. And I think it must be, for a man can enjoy a woman's company and find her charming without feeling any desire to propose matrimony to her.

  I am not as charming as Miss Harwick ... and certainly not as pretty. But I believe that I can be every bit her equal if I keep my wits about me and keep my head engaged. And since I have no fortune at stake, what possible reason can I have for failing?

  It was her own penmanship. A page from her journal. As the blood rushed from her face and hands, she felt a sense of horror stealing over her.

  "It is your handwriting, isn't it?" he said. "She said she did not know who wrote it, but when she showed it to me, I thought as much."

  She? In her mind, Flora saw Hetta on the hillside the day of the picnic, the piece of paper in her hand. Not a personal note, but a page that escaped the journal's broken binding.

  "Roger," she began. A sob caught in her throat. "It is not...it is not how it seems."

  "It is yours, then," he said. The final gleam of hope vanished from his eyes. "So all this time, your company, your words ... it was all a game, a diversion? All because you disapproved of another woman's character?"

  "It was more than that," she pleaded. Tears were stinging her cheeks now. "Please, you must understand..."

  He shook his head. "I think there is no more to be said, Miss Stuart." His voice was cold. "You have your note returned to you; and I have my answer." With that, he turned away and strode towards the door.

  Desperately, she wanted to follow him–but how would it look, a young woman pursuing a man into the streets of London? She blinked back the tears that were blurring her vision, her fingers wrapped tightly around the torn piece of paper that destroyed even the hope of friendship.

  Through the haze, she glimpsed Hetta Harwick in the door leading to the concert, a smile of triumph evident on her face.

  *****

  Curled in the chair before her bedroom fire, she allowed herself to sob openly. No doubt Roger would feel gratitude towards the young woman who proved the false side of his friend. By comparison to her actions, Hetta indeed looked innocent in the whole affair.

  None of it mattered to her, since after tonight the truce between her and Roger was at an end.

  It was all her fault; she had broken her own rules and now paid the price. Write nothing inappropriate in one's correspondence, be it letters or notes, to avoid revealing one's feelings or faults by accident, should they be read by a third party. If she had taken her own precautions, then her journal page would not exist to make Roger think she was a deceitful flirt.

  In a way, she was. It was true that she had done her best to destroy Hetta's chances by using her own charms. Perhaps she was no better than the page's words implied.

  "Oh, what have I done? " she murmured brokenly. "Now I have lost everything in my foolishness."

  She crumpled the note in her hand and let it drop to the floor. Her eye fell upon the copy of Advice for Young Ladies on the Subject of Proposals. Seizing it with one hand, she tossed it into the fire.

  The flames licked the cover and pages slowly, causing the paper to blacken and curl. She watched it burn as a lump of anger and sorrow rose in her throat.

  Better to be done with it. To forget all about what happened. Soon enough there would be no reminders left–for even if Miss Harwick was successful in the end, she would depart for Donnelly Hall as a bride.

  Burying her face in her hands, more hot tears coursed down her cheeks as her hopes and self-pride curled to ashes. The folded list of rules for engagements fell into the flames and vanished.

  *****

  I have been wrong, wrong, wrong in my actions and now I pay the price. My work and my silly plans are consigned to the flames, as is my heart. How can I ever take up my pen and write another book, knowing that this one had such dire consequences? How can I ever face Roger, who sees me only as a cold-hearted, meddling girl? I have never been so ashamed of anything in my life as when he showed me those lines in my own handwriting. And even if I could explain the meaning behind them, I do not think he would care. For it is the same as is written, except the true feelings of my heart. If only I had listened to Papa and been content to be a poor dependent with Marianne!

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The fire was cold in the grate when Flora awoke the next morning. Her head was draped across her arm where she had cried herself to sleep at the dressing table with her journal. It recalled to mind a separate occasion in which she had fallen asleep in this spot. The night she decided upon her campaign to rescue Roger.

  As she rose, she noticed something had changed. Her journal was by her elbow, a
s were several blank sheets for correspondence. But the drawer that held her scribblings for future books was partly open. Its contents were gone, when Flora pulled it all the way.

  Marianne. She must have taken them and not returned them. Pulling her wrap from the chair by the fire, Flora made her way down the hall to her sister's room.

  The proofs of her book were spread across the floor in careful piles. With an open ink bottle, a nightgown-clad Marianne lay on her stomach, carefully filling out new sheets in her neatest possible hand.

  "What are you doing, dearest?" said Flora. Dismayed, she knelt and took the pen from her sister‘s fingers. Tears rolled down Marianne's cheeks, dyed grey from smears of ink.

  "I don't want you to give up the book," she answered. "See? I can finish the notes for you. All the things about what a lady shouldn't do because you told me them. Then you can take it to the publisher, can't you?" She was shaking with sobs trapped in her chest.

  "I thought the little book was a good thing," Marianne cried. "Weren't we supposed to be proud of it, Flora? Didn't you think it was a good thing that all those ladies like it so?"

  Flora slid her arm around her sister's shoulders and held her close. Guilt surged through her at the realization that her careless remarks about her work would hurt Marianne. The girl who took so much pride and enthusiasm in Flora’s resourcefulness.

  "It isn't merely the work, or what people say about it, dearest. It is about whether or not I am doing the right thing,” she said, softly. “Meddling with people's hearts can be dangerous. Suppose someone uses my little book for cruel purposes and makes others miserable?"

  She wiped away Marianne's tears with her handkerchief. "They would treat the advice as a game, you see; and the book would be the rules by which someone else loses. Then it would be my fault, in a way."

  "But can't knowing the rules be good?" Marianne protested. "You said Giles and Isabel used the rules and they are happy. And the stories you told about all the others you knew–the Miss Rushworth and Miss Pemberton–"

  "They just inspired the idea to write the book," said Flora. "They didn’t use it; even if it had existed then, it wasn't meant for them, it was meant for–" Here, she could not bring herself to say. For was not the book's audience herself? A tomboyish girl who adored romance, but never put its art into application.

  "But the Miss Bartons," sobbed Marianne. "Couldn't they use the book to be happy? Aunt Charlotte is always saying they're too plain to be married. And the younger Miss Phillipses–"

  "All of whom might find someone perfectly suitable without having to pursue them," interrupted Flora. "I think it would be best if I put aside writing for awhile. Perhaps for good– and find something else to earn our income."

  "You can't give up," pleaded Marianne. “Don’t say that, Flora.” She scrambled to her feet, nearly upsetting the ink bottle her sister had the foresight to cap.

  "There will be other opportunities," Flora began. Although she could not think of any at the moment. "Perhaps if there had been even one happy romance from the book I could defend it–but I have no proof that it causes anything but heartache."

  "But didn't you say that it was God who made you able to write? So you could use it and wouldn't have to ask Giles for money when Papa is gone?" She dug beneath her coverlet and pulled her treasure box from its hiding place.

  "That's not what I said," Flora argued, collecting the ink-stained pages from the floor. "I told you that our talents are meant to be used for honest labors so we can be independent. And surely I must have more than one."

  "But what if you don't?" Marianne paused, the lid to her box open. "What if this is your talent and you throw it away? Where will we be?"

  The worry on Marianne's face spoke to her heart, even as she struggled against it. Her pride over her work, the humility of knowing that it was necessary, altogether indispensable, to earn an income–these flaws seemed like proof enough her endeavor was a risk to her faith.

  "I would be left with my self-pride, regardless of it," she answered, resting her head on her hand. "I was so clever and conceited over its success–and all the time ashamed to have someone know it was me."

  She closed her eyes against the tears gathered there at the thought of her prideful mistakes. Of her secret smile when the little book was debated. The chill of horror when the truth was exposed to Roger in the park.

  Was it her pride that was the culprit? Or the book? It only compiled the rules of courtship everyone already knew; she had been the one to abuse its advice.

  A sudden weight on her lap made her open her eyes again. Her copy of Advice for Young Ladies on the Subject of Proposals lay there. Its charred edges curled outwards, its pages smoke-stained but still intact. It was not burned to ashes beneath the logs as she had envisioned.

  Marianne knelt across from her, holding the now-empty treasure box that had once contained paper soldiers and sea shells.

  "I saw it last night when I came in to ask you about the concert," said Marianne. "That's when I knew you were giving up; otherwise, you wouldn't have burned it. I thought if I helped, it would prove it wasn’t so bad. Maybe then you wouldn't be so angry about it anymore." Her tone was meek, her gaze pleading as she waited for her sister's answer.

  Flora's fingers gingerly peeled open the cover, turning the damaged pages one by one.

  "Oh, Marianne," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. Truly I am." With smoke-stained fingers, she stroked her sister's hair.

  "You are right. I cannot throw it away." She pressed her face against Marianne's curls. "Just because I used it wrongly does not meant that others will not use it as it was intended. Perhaps somewhere, for someone it will do some good. Maybe inspiring a proposal from their true love instead of hiding shyly in a corner at a ball or party."

  In spite of her heartache, she allowed herself to laugh at the notion. Even in her mind, the chance seemed small despite its possibility.

  "Then you're not angry I rescued it?" asked Marianne. "I was afraid you would be."

  "No, I'm not angry," Flora answered. "I suppose the same feeling that made me proud of its success made me burn it–selfish pride over my mistakes. There are other things I have to be more ashamed of than the honest endeavor of writing a book."

  She wiped the tears from her own eyes. "But that is all done now," she concluded, raising her chin in determination. "And now it is time to be properly grown-up in the world. I shall never receive a proposal from a wealthy young gentleman–but I shall receive a few pounds from my pen's labors. And you and I," she whispered, squeezing her sister's shoulder, "shall perhaps find a little cottage in the country where we can happy."

  Glancing over the pages of notes spread beside her, she studied the ones Marianne had added. "What is this about climbing bookshelves to reach those at the top?" she glanced at her sister. "Marianne, you haven't–that is why there is a ladder, you know."

  "But it's always on the other side," protested Marianne. "And I knew a lady shouldn't do it, so I put it in the notes."

  With a faint smile, Flora let the page fall back in the pile. She placed the charred copy of Advice for Young Ladies on top.

  Here was her sign that all her mistakes were not disastrous. She resolved that any future advice volumes would contain only the most cautious of words–and nothing whatsoever of courtship.

  *****

  "You have heard the news about Miss Phillips's wedding?" asked Mrs. Fitzwilliam. "It is but too true, I am afraid; her cousin has run away to Gretna Green with a young man but three days before the event and the family is all in an uproar over it."

  She hugged Flora's arm as they strolled along together, Mrs. Fitzwilliam intent upon gossip and an errand at her dressmaker's. For Flora's part, she was seeking fresh air and a change of scenery from the confines of home and her writing desk.

  "How terribly sad for Miss Phillips," said Flora. "Is the cousin in question married now, I hope? If so, surely it will not ruin her wedding day plans."

  "Oh,
they are still making inquiries as to the outcome of the elopement. But the young woman did post her letter using the gentleman's name, so they hope for the best. He is the son of a barrister, it seems, so that is better than nothing, I suppose."

  They passed the bookshop, where a glance told Flora that copies of Advice for Young Ladies on the Subject of Proposals were still available. A young lady emerged carrying a large hatbox in one hand, an open volume in the other as she perused its pages intently. Flora smiled wryly, half-wishing that the little volume would lose its interest altogether.

  Her fear that her advice would be abused meant the proofs of her newest book had come under intense editing by herself and her pen. For what if her newest book should become another text of scandal? She could not bear the idea, given the past few weeks of her life.

  "I have yet to send a copy of that advice book to my niece's girl," remarked Mrs. Fitzwilliam. "You remember, the shy one who will be of age soon? I think it would be well if she read something in deportment, poor clumsy thing."

  "I'm not sure that you should," Flora answered. "For when they are not rules for engagements, they might as well be rules for flirtations–and is not a girl so young also impressionable?"

  "You sound quite afraid of the little book's powers, my dear," her aunt quipped. "Surely not!"

  "Perhaps its author would have been better to apply their efforts to a more useful subject like needlework," suggested Flora.

  "Needlework? Of all the ideas!" laughed Mrs. Fitzwilliam. "What is the subject of needlework compared to the subject of love, my dear?" She shook her head with amusement.

  The carriage ride to Mrs. Fitzwilliams' house was short, giving them only time for conversation on the subject of books in general and the rumors of romance which left Flora feeling lonely within her circumstances. As for her own mind, it was occupied by thoughts of a more practical nature. Perhaps she should discuss the mistake of flirtation in Rules of Decorum, as a less-than-genteel activity for all young ladies.