Scene 1.2 – Boston Common

    On the walk outside Aunt Esther's Beacon Hill brownstone, Billy squinted in the bright but weak April sunshine. He stifled his annoyance that he'd just wasted the better part of this glorious spring morning inside his aunt's ballroom. He decided, instead, to enjoy that much-delayed walk on the Common. Dodging between horses and carriages, Billy jumped muddy ruts and puddles filled with brown liquid to reach the green fringe of the Common. After all that exercise, his patched great coat, a hand-me-down from his father, felt unnecessary in the warm spring air and so he opened the collar as he strode forward. Inhaling deeply of the intoxicating scent of spring -- fresh grass and budding flowers -- Billy began whistling tunelessly, and out of idle curiosity, went in search of the brown mutt and his small master, but they had disappeared.

As Billy walked deeper into Common, he noticed a mixed crowd of men gathered around what appeared to be a speaker haranguing them with all the zeal of a Fourth of July orator. Wondering, Billy let his carefree whistle trail off as he approached the group and noted the odd mixture of humanity: businessmen in solemn black frock coats and shove pipe hats stood next to bareheaded workingmen in vests and shirt sleeves, and the usual cloud of dogs and boys lurked around the edges of the assembly. From various points within the crowd, American flags sprouted, like flowers. Occasionally, as a cheer went up from the assembly, the flags would wave hysterically, as if a sudden wind had come up in the stillness of the day to stir them. As Billy stepped up beside a bewhiskered man in a brown frock coat, he tried to catch something of the speaker's oration.

    "Are we not in the shadow of that very monument?" asked the orator, pointing off to his right. Billy strained his eyes toward where the man pointed but saw nothing except the roofs of brownstone townhouses identical to his aunt's.

    "Excuse me, sir." Billy asked the man in the brown frock coat, who puffed idly at a cigar. "What's he talking about?"

    "The Bunker Hill monument," the man, obviously annoyed by Billy's question, grunted, blowing smoke in Billy's face.

    "And what of the blood-soaked cobbles just paces away from this very spot where patriots died and bled, massacred by Red Coat tyrants?" the speaker continued to bellow. "And can you not smell the harbor, even here? The harbor, I remind you, where other patriots threw tea overboard just as they threw off the chains of oppression, the shackles placed upon them by an unjust king? How can we, their sons and heirs, now stand idly by while a pack of brigands sunders the sacred Union that our ancestors suffered, bled, and died to create?"

    Billy scratched his head. Determined to figure out the cause of this patriotic outpouring, he turned to the man on his left, a stout fellow with the sleeves of his dirty white shirt rolled up and a soiled green vest. "What's he going on about? Is there some election on?"

    "Naw," the man looked at Billy as if he'd crawled out of some cave.

    "Well then, what is it?" Billy demanded.

    "You haven't heard?" The barrel-chested man lisped, incredulous.

    "No." Billy shook his head earnestly.

    "Why, them South Carolina scoundrels have gone and fired on Fort Sumter. They've insulted the flag!" The man hissed his "s's" oddly, but the men around him ignored this, instead nodded and grumbled in agreement.

"Bastards," one man growled.

    "Dirty butchers," another snapped.

    Billy scowled. "Just this morning my father dismissed the whole Fort Sumter affair as a lot of politicians blowing smoke. Do you mean all that secession nonsense down there has actually come to blows?"

    "Damned right!" The man in the green vest spat into the ground. "And it's high time some of us went down there and taught those Carolina cowards a lesson."

    "Here, here!" More nods and mutters of agreement greeted this pronouncement.

    "That's all right," said the man in the brown frock coat, finally drawn into the conversation. He pulled confidently on his cigar and then exhaled his opinion along with his smoke. "Lincoln will call for troops soon. He has to."

    "Troops?" Billy coughed.

The man nodded. "Ninety-day troops, I'd wager. That will be more than enough time to put down the scum for good."

     "You mean militia?" Billy's breath caught in his throat. "That means war!"

    Billy's head spun, as visions of martial glory, vague images of waving flags and applauding crowds swam through his head. He saw himself leading a victory parade, with friends, relatives, and neighbors looking on, including Felicity, Maggie, Nathan, even Ethan. Ethan -- wouldn't he eat crow if he confronted Billy the war hero instead of Billy, his poor old cousin?

    The man in the frock coat laughed. "It won't be much of a war, I'd wager. All it would take is one disciplined volley from our troops, and the rebel rabble will break and run." Dismissively, he waved a hand, smoldering cigar pinched between index and middle finger, shooing away imaginary rebels as easily as one would shoo a persistent fly. "The whole thing will be over by June at the latest."

The burly man in shirtsleeves nudged Billy. "So, if you want to get in on the fun, you'd better be quick about it. Join the militia as soon as you can, before the whole thing's over," he hissed with his usual sibilance.

Billy beamed. "Me? Join the militia?" He blushed as he heard himself voice aloud the thought he'd been nurturing in the silence of his heart.

"Why sure! Those recruiters would snap up a strapping young feller like you with a full set of choppers in a heartbeat," the workingman assured Billy airily. "Not like me," he sighed.

"Really, why not?" Billy asked, as he looked the hefty man over. Next to his bulk, Billy felt not like a strapping yellow fellow but a green shoot of a reed.

The workingman grinned sheepishly and pointed to a prominent gap in his upper front teeth, the source, evidently, of the hissing sound when he spoke. "Missin' tooth. Won't take you unless you can bite open a paper cartridge wid your front teeth."

"Huh," muttered Billy. "If that's all you need, then maybe they would take me."

The businessman turned to Billy and regarded him narrowly, as if really seeing him for the first time. "I don't know." He chewed in the end of his cigar thoughtfully. "I wouldn't be too sure of that. How old are you, son?"

Billy, smarting from being called "son" by this stranger, straightened up to his full height and cleared his throat to sound as mature as possible. "Seventeen -- and three-quarters." He added this last as an afterthought.

The businessman shook his head. "I believe the minimum age without parental consent is eighteen years. Would that father of yours -- he's the one who called Fort Sumter just a lot of hot air, right? Would he really agree to let you join the militia?"

    Abruptly, the marital pageant in Billy's head vanished. Now that he considered it, he wasn't at all sure his father would approve. Still, I don't want to miss my only chance, Billy thought, feeling a scowl crease his brow. If I don't ask, I'll never know, and if this will all be over by June, I'd better start for home now.

    "Well, good day, gentleman," Billy said to the two men as he tugged at the broad brim of his black hat. "And thank you for the information."

    "Don't mention it," the workingman smiled, revealing again the missing front tooth that gaped cavernously in his mouth.

The stogy-smoker merely grunted in reply, once again absorbed in the speaker's litany. Billy headed off across the Common, squelching as he went, wondering how he would convince his father to give him permission to join the militia.

Copyright © 2010 by Anthony W. Artuso

Scene 1.1 - Opening Scene - Dance Scene

This is the first scene of my Civil War novel. Please feel free to comment. Let me know what you think about the setting, characters, language, etc. Are you confused? Intrigued? I look forward to your feedback.

*****

Bright sunshine revealed tentative green tendrils poking up hopefully through the ooze. Into the goo splashed a mud-colored mutt, with curly brown hair, its tail waging haphazardly as its large pink tongue lolled randomly from side-to-side. Snuffling, snout down in the mud, he investigated the emerald heralds of spring with a perfunctory sniff and bounded over to the real item of interest, a black wrought iron lamppost. This he nosed with great zeal, his concentration broken only when a small boy, swallowed up by a coat twice the child's size, squealed into view. After capering around him a bit, the dog rolled in the ooze energetically then bounded to all fours and shook vigorously. Thus refreshed, the dog bolted off, his escort squelching dutifully behind him.

The show over, Billy refocused on the scene indoors, sighing enviously at the dog's freedom to romp on the Boston common, while he, Billy, endured another lecture in here. He felt stifled in the ballroom, perhaps because a small blaze jumped in the fireplace, unnecessary in April, but, then, Billy's aunt could afford luxuries.

"Curved arms," Mister Howe declaimed. "No elbows." To emphasize his point, he plucked at the black sleeve of Nathan Appleton's frock coat at the right elbow and attempted to straightened Nathan's arm -- but not too much.

Mister Howe stepped back from Nathan, who straightened up like a cadet undergoing inspection, barely suppressing a sarcastic smirk and wink in Billy's direction. Mister Howe, for his part, wore an expression of resigned exasperation. The frozen look of disapproval, however, melted when Mister Howe glanced over at Nathan's partner, and beheld a short, chunky brunette, who wore her glossy locks in rather old-fashioned ringlets framing her round, doughy face.

"Look at Miss Maynard! See how she holds her arms in such a perfect curve?" Mister Howe expostulated.

Dutifully, Billy inspected Miss Maynard's arm. He thought, If Nathan had as much fat on his bones as Barbara, his elbow would disappear, too! But, wisely, Billy chose not to voice this observation.

Mister Howe spoke directly to the object of his attention. "You're doing such a lovely job, my dear lady -- as usual, I might add." He beamed at the young woman, who blushed appropriately and murmured her thanks while looking at the floor.

Made restive by having to witness Mister Howe's doting attentions on his favorite pupil, Billy sought another distraction. He surveyed the room, glancing over grandfather clock, chandelier, highly polished piano. His gaze eventually rested on the grand pair of light brown paneled doors that led to freedom -- the hallway beyond the ballroom. The upper half of each door consisted of a frosted glass pane, a strange, abstract floral design centered in each one. Billy remembered thinking, as a child on visits to this house, his aunt's townhouse, that these must be Aunt Esther's -- and his --family's cost of arms. He was wrong, of course.

Staring at them now, he started to look away when he saw a shadow flit across them.

"Mister Bishop, are we quite ready?" The arch voice of the dance master called him back. "Even though you are sitting out this quadrille because you're an extra, it is very impolite not to pay strict attention to the proceedings. Besides, you may actually learn something -- especially if you attend to an apt student -- like Miss Maynard." Mister Howe directed a toothy grin at Barbara.

"Yes, sir." Billy nodded.

"Then we shall commence," the now-seated dance master replied. He drew up the bow of his fiddle. "Three for nothing -- one, two, three." The bow came down, drawing forth a high-pitched whine that settled into the martial strut of the "Star-Spangled Banner."

As the dancers went back and forth in the almost military evolutions, Billy risked a glance over his shoulder. To his surprise and delight, in the glass of the double doors he now saw not a flitting shadow but a solid, dark silhouette moving back and forth across the two panes in perfect time to the music -- imitating, in solo, the dance that the two couples facing each other in front of Billy did inside the ballroom.

"So Billy, what's so interesting out that door?" The sarcastic tones of Billy's cousin, Ethan Wolliston snapped the magic of Billy's reverie. Annoyed, Billy focused on Ethan, who, with Felicity Merriman, danced opposite Nathan and Barbara. "Thinking about playing a little hooky? Like our fellow dancers? Like your father?"

Ethan referred to the fact that on most Wednesdays Mister Bishop came into town with his son and while Billy suffered through an interminable dance lesson, his father tutored Aunt Esther's two servants -- Quintus and Maggie -- in the three R's. Nettled, Billy replied with more acrimony in his voice than he intended. "My father, your uncle, isn't playing hooky. Like I said, he's got an important meeting with Mister Longfellow."

"Oh, Henry, that old windbag. Of course, he'd be Professor Longfellow to you."

"Not to me."

“Oh, that's right. You don't go to Harvard. Speaking of which, how is your semester going, Nathan?”

Nathan, who, unlike Ethan, concentrated on the footwork of the figure, looked up, surprised. “Just fine, thank you.”

“Professor Morton giving you any trouble? I know I had a devil of a time with him last year.”

“Oh, he's all right,” Nathan shrugged. “But say, Ethan, let's not talk about school now. Let's talk about something everyone can join in on.”
Ethan sighed. “Well, then, we're having glorious weather, aren't we?”

“Glorious,” Billy agreed half-heartedly.

“I guess you and Felicity here would like to scamper about together on the Common, just like you did when you were youngsters.” Ethan indicated his dance partner with a slight bow of his head.

“Why, so you can tattle on us again?” Billy arched a skeptical brow.
Felicity, finishing the figure by returning to Ethan’s side, scowled at him. “Really, Ethan, stop goading your cousin. And, William, don't take the bait. Honestly, I'm sick of the way you two are always at each other. So, Nathan, how are you?”

The music stopped abruptly as Mister Howe stood and interrupted Nathan's answer. “All right now, that's enough -- enough chitchat and enough dancing. And again, the best of you was Miss Maynard. You do such a lovely job, my dear. Perhaps because you pay so much better attention than the others do.”

Blushing and curtsying, Barbara excused herself. “Unfortunately, I have to leave now, another pressing engagement. Perhaps that's why I was so focused. I find the pressure of an early departure concentrates the mind wonderfully, don't you?”

"Oh, most definitely," Mister Howe agreed, as always, to everything Barbara said. "But do you really have to go now?"

Barbara sighed with fitting theatricality. "I'm afraid I must depart promptly."
Howe bowed, demonstrating the perfectly curved arms that eluded Nathan, Billy, and Ethan. "Well, we shall miss you, dear Miss Maynard. I hope we shall see you next week for a full lesson."

Barbara curtsied in reply. "Oh, yes, you shall. It will be my pleasure."

Straightening, Howe took her gloved hand and, impulsively, brushed it with his lips in what Billy took to be a polite kiss. "No, it will be mine."

Cheeks scarlet, Barbara breathed, "Adieu."

"Adieu," Howe replied in a reverential voice barely rising above a whisper.

"Good-bye," Billy called as the tubby young woman squeezed through the double doors, where, moments before, as soon as the music ended, the dancing apparition had faded. Yet, as the others chorused "Good-bye" after their classmate, Billy thought he heard a muffled exchange outside the doors on the landing, as if the shadow now spoke with the departing Barbara.

Howe whirled on his other charges, suddenly all business. "Now, then, I fear with Miss Maynard gone we must rearrange ourselves to do the next figure of this quadrille."

Nathan shrugged and glanced over at Billy. "Well, I suppose we could dance together, William. And Ethan could continue to dance with Felicity. I'll take the woman's part," Nathan offered with a grin.

Billy patted Nathan lightly on the shoulder. "Love to old chum, but there's another member of our class who's been practicing in secret just outside the door. Let's invite her in, shall we?" Without waiting for Howe's permission, Billy whirled and headed out the room.

When he poked his head out the doors, he beheld a young woman, dressed in a plain gray day dress with a stark white apron, which, despite its puritan plainness, did little to hide the voluptuous curves of her womanly figure. A black snood barely contained her unruly, flaming curls. For a moment, the color of her cheeks matched that of her locks -- but only for a moment.

Maggie, Aunt Esther's maidservant, collected herself. Having been caught twice eavesdropping on the dance lesson instead of working, she apparently decided to brazen it out. "Oh, excuse me, sir. Am I wanted here?" she asked in her most impersonal, professional tone. Billy noted, with delight, that despite his father's training and her years in this country, Maggie's brogue still inflected every word.

They'll never domesticate you, he thought and beamed. "Yes, to join us in a quadrille."

"Join you, s-sir?" the young Irishwoman stammered, her eyes wide.
For a moment, Billy wondered if Cinderella's face bore the same mixture of surprise and delight when the Prince in the fairy tale asked her to dance. Though I'm hardly a Prince, Billy thought with a rueful smile. Ethan's better suited to that role. Pushing aside the depressing thought, Billy nodded to Maggie, his Gaelic Cinderella, and offered her his right arm. Hesitantly, but barely containing her excitement and the growing flush on her cheek, she slid her ungloved left hand around Billy's right elbow, as she'd seen the other couples do during the lesson.

She assumed her most regal posture as the two of them stepped into the ballroom.

Inside the room, Howe gasped. "Really, Mister Bishop, this is quite unorthodox, very unconventional." He sputtered. "This girl is a servant. She's not a member of your class."

Nathan, dumbfounded, but smiling good naturedly, stepped aside as Billy and Maggie took up his space in front of Ethan and Felicity.

"Why, what would your aunt, Miss Bishop, say?" Howe expostulated.

"I daresay she'd approve, sir," Maggie observed coolly over her shoulder.

Aghast, the normally excruciatingly elegant Mister Howe let his bewhiskered jaw drop in a most undignified manner. Billy watched the scene unfold with a satisfied smirk. When Howe regained his composure, he strode up to Maggie and looked her up and down. "Really, you are a cheeky one," he observed with a condescending arch of his brow. Assuming the air of a better indulging the upstart notions of an inferior, he asked, "And why would Miss Bishop approve, pray tell me?"

Maggie regarded Howe with the same detached, superior gaze that he turned on her. "She wants us -- even her servants -- even me and Quintus -- to improve ourselves, so she does."

"That's Quintus and I, my dear," hissed Felicity, who stood across from her, and looked away from Howe's confrontation with Maggie in obvious embarrassment.

Ignoring Felicity, Billy stepped into the fray. "Yes, that's why my father usually comes over to tutor her and Quintus while we dance every week."

"Every week except this one," Ethan chuckled, as he eyed Maggie. "Mister Bishop's playing hooky…" he taunted his cousin

Silently, Billy scowled at Ethan, who ignored him and continued his assessment of Maggie.

Felicity cleared her throat delicately, obviously loath to involve herself in this ridiculous conversation but seeing no way to avoid it, in the wake of Mister Howe's obvious failure to talk sense into Maggie and Billy. "Maggie, you're absolutely right." Felicity spoke with the delicacy of an adult addressing a confused child. "Miss Bishop does want her servants to improve themselves. That's why it's appropriate that you and Quintus are in the same reading class. But, frankly, my dear, you can't join this class. We're, we're your betters, after all."

Billy winced, embarrassed for Maggie and disappointed in Felicity. What happened to the old Felicity, the little girl who willingly played with him, the son of an impoverished schoolteacher and farmer, on the Common not so many years ago? Her parents turned her into a snob, he thought furiously. But before he said any of this, Ethan stepped in.

"Felicity, now really, where's your charity? I forgot, that's your sister's name," Ethan chortled, apparently enjoying this fine joke. "In any case, if Miss Flaherty wants to join us for a figure or two, where's the harm in that?" He bestowed a toothy grim on Maggie, who flushed and looked away.

Stung by this sudden attack from such an unexpected quarter, Felicity whirled on Ethan. "What's gotten into you? You, of all people, I think would be most likely to object."

Ethan shrugged. "Tosh, Felicity."

Perhaps emboldened by Felicity's gallant, but futile, stand for propriety, the flustered Howe found his tongue. He turned to Ethan, trying to reason with him. "Mister Wollaston, Miss Merriman is quite correct, you know…"

Ethan waved a hand dismissively, assuming a convincingly superior air that fitted him all too well. Normally, Billy found his cousin's condescension unbearable. But, in this case, he felt relieved that Ethan had actually taken his part. "Nonsense. If Miss Flaherty wants to dance, and I want her to dance and so do Billy and Nathan," who nodded to his silent college friend, "I'd say majority rules. Billy's motion to invite Miss Flaherty into the quadrille passes."

"Now that's a switch," Felicity grumbled and looked away, abashed. "Ethan, you actually agree with your cousin on something."

"But, of course," Ethan replied smoothly. "Now, shall we dance?" he asked Maggie.

Huffing, pink-checked Felicity conceded. "Very well, then. I accede to the alleged majority." She turned on the Irishwoman and waved a finger in front of her nose. "But, Maggie, I warn you, watch yourself around Ethan. He's up to no good. I can tell by that glint in his eye…"

Ethan laughed and looked at the ceiling. "Now, Felicity, really."

His shoulders slumping in defeat, Howe sighed. "All right, then, places everyone," he spoke rapidly, obviously hoping to get this humiliating business over with as quickly as possible. "Miss Flaherty and Mister Bishop, you'll be couple number two," he mumbled. "Now just repeat whatever Mister Wollaston and Miss Merriman, couple number one, do. All right?"

Maggie straightened and beamed at Ethan. "I'm fine, sir. I know this dance by heart."

Howe, taking up his fiddle and seating himself, looked up skeptically. "Really, and how's that?"

"I've been watching you."

"And she's been practicing, too," Billy added. "I saw her through the frosted glass of the doors."

Howe rolled his eyes, took up his bow. "All right, then. Let's commence. On the count of three: one, two, three…"

Billy raised his gloved right hand, offering it to Maggie with a furtive glance. Maggie placed the delicate pink fingers of her left hand in his palm and squeezed him through the immaculate, if threadbare, material. Whatever the squeeze meant, "thank you" or "let's go" or "I’m here," the pressure and warmth of Maggie's touch sent a thrill up Billy's spine. He'd never come so close before to holding a woman's bare hand during a dance. All the proper ladies, like Felicity and Barbara, always wore gloves, as did he and the other men.

Billy started forward, glancing over his left shoulder at Maggie to make sure that she moved forward, too. In fact, she surged a bit ahead of him. She did know this dance and meant to prove it -- by ignoring Billy's lead. "You're quite good, Miss Flaherty," he said with some surprise.

Releasing Maggie's hand, Billy slid between Ethan on his right and Felicity on this left. Even though he kept track of Ethan out of the corner of his right eye, the leer that Ethan directed over his right shoulder at Maggie distracted Billy so much he failed to notice Ethan's right foot extended to trip him. Billy staggered, regained his balance, reaching his left hand out to Maggie not only steady himself but to turn her as prescribed by the dance manual.

"Why, thank you, Mister Bishop. And you can call me Maggie -- everyone else does."

They paused at the end of the set.

"That means you must call me Billy."

"Not 'William'?"

"No, William's too stuffy and formal."

"Very well, then, Billy."

They lurched forward again, Maggie clearly in the lead, just as Ethan and Felicity advanced again to meet them.

"And you can call me, Ethan, Maggie." Unwonted, Billy's cousin jumped into the conversation.

Maggie nodded in Ethan's direction. "As you wish, Ethan."

This time, Billy passed to Felicity's left and Maggie passed to Ethan's left. He ignored Felicity's scowl as he brushed her sleeve and, staring over her head, scowled himself as he watched Ethan lean indecently close to Maggie.

As Billy barely cleared Felicity, he heard her remark to Ethan, "My, aren't we informal now. Just like old chums, are we? You're not always this familiar with the hired help."

Billy grabbed desperately with his left hand, pulling Maggie by her left hand away from Ethan and whirling her around with a rustle of her gray shirts.

He heard Ethan's chortling reply to Felicity. "Hush. Maggie's my guest here, not hired help."

"Really!" Felicity replied, her hiss audible across the room. "I thought this was William's idea, not yours."

Maggie frowned, but Billy reached his right hand over his left, forcing Maggie to face him in promenade position and, with a lunge, chassezed across the room, Maggie in tow.

"So, have you been baking this morning, Maggie?" he asked her, hoping to distract Maggie from Felicity's obvious rudeness. "I smell the most wonderful scents from downstairs. You must be quite a cook." Actually, the wonderful scents came from Maggie's delicate, bare hands, which, just a few minutes earlier, had been buried in dough. Billy found the perfume of Maggie's baking more attractive than any of the unnatural scents that Barbara and Felicity wore.

Maggie kept up with Billy's furious chassez. In fact, she surged ahead of him, grinning with delight at the speed with which she and he flew across the floor. "Why, thank you, Billy. Yes, I have been baking. Miss Bishop is having some folks to tea this afternoon, and I'm baking for them."

Alerted to Ethan's game, Billy stared over his right shoulder and saw, as Ethan passed behind his back, the leg outstretched to trip Billy, who sidestepped to easily avoid it.

As the couples passed, Felicity called out to Maggie, "Perhaps you should attend to your baking, then, Maggie. Don't want your goodies to burn…"

Billy and Maggie arrived on the other side of the set, Billy beaming at his own
triumph over Ethan's attempt to trip him up again, but before he could savor his moment, Maggie tugged on his hands as she chassezed back and, to keep up, he plunged after her, still eyeing Ethan, who, remarkably, behaved himself this time.

"Don't worry about that, Miss Merriman," Maggie reassured the young woman as she passed her, taking up the conversation where they'd left off. "They're just cooling now."

At the end of the set, they paused. As Billy dropped Maggie's left hand he heard Ethan remark to Felicity, "And you should mind the dance, Felicity, or you'll miss a step, and I guarantee that Maggie won't."

While Billy smiled deeply into Maggie's eyes, she called over her shoulder, "Why, thank you, Ethan."

Still holding her right hand, Billy spun Maggie around so her skirts flew. With a look of disappointment and regret, he released her hand as she floated into the center of the set, where she grasped Felicity's tentatively offered left hand. Billy saw Felicity avoiding Maggie's eyes, staring out of the circle, disgusted by Maggie's very touch. She offered Billy her right hand with only slightly less disdain and hauntiness, and they circled each other warily, at arm's length, fully extended as if they were two heavenly bodies repulsing, and not attracting, each other. Billy, however, ignored this, glancing anxiously over his shoulder at Maggie, who now spun with Ethan, who, most improperly, placed his hand on Maggie's waist.

Billy overheard Maggie speaking to Ethan. "Billy likes the smell of my baking, but it smells much better up here. Perhaps it's your cologne."
Ethan chuckled at Maggie's awkward compliment and changed the subject. " I daresay I know what this tea Miss Bishop is hosting is all about. Another one of her abolitionist meetings, I imagine."

Maggie replied, " I wouldn't know, Ethan, but I'm sure it will be lovely. Her teas always are."

"Yes, indeed. My father's always fond of Aunt Esther's teas but can seldom attend -- too much important business to attend to. This afternoon, he and I are meeting with bankers to finance a rather large project."

"Really?" Maggie breathed, clearly impressed.

"Yes. My father directs several rather large enterprises." Ethan, suddenly becoming aware of Billy's intense interest in their conversation addressed his cousin over his shoulder. "So, Billy, does your father still fancy himself a farmer?"

"It's not fancy, Ethan," Billy snapped.

Furious, Billy grabbed Maggie's right hand as she came around, jerking her towards him. With his left hand, he snatched Maggie's left and strode off at a brisk pace around the circle in the promenade. Behind him, he heard Felicity mutter, "Well, that's more like it. Just like old times -- back to goading your cousin again, Ethan?"

Distracted by his own anger, Billy didn't notice Ethan hurrying up behind him with a staggering Felicity until he heard Maggie's gasp of laughter.

"They're chasing us around the circle!" she chuckled.

Fortunately, at this moment, Mister Howe intervened with his stentorian voice: "This is a promenade, Mister Wollaston, not a race!"

"But, of course, Mister Howe. How silly of me." Having reached their place in the set, Ethan stopped short, causing Felicity to nearly tumble over.

"Thank you, Mister Howe, for reminding him," panted Felicity, who scowled at Ethan's beaming face.

Abruptly, Mister Howe stopped playing his fiddle. With a groan, he stood up. "Well, that's that," he said with obvious relief. "Lovely, quite lovely, all," he mumbled dismissively. "And I’m afraid we're out of time. I look forward to seeing you next week -- with the exception of Miss Flaherty, of course." He frowned at the serving woman, who acknowledged his glare with a mocking curtsey.

"Of course," Felicity agreed acidly.

Ignoring Felicity, Billy smiled at the red-haired woman next to him. "Thank you very much for joining us, Maggie."

Maggie nodded. "My pleasure."

"And mine as well," said Ethan, abandoning Felicity and stepping up behind Maggie, who turned to face him with a broad smile. "And, the dance master notwithstanding, I hope to see more of you, Maggie -- soon, very soon."

Maggie giggled. "I hope so, too." She looked down at the floor awkwardly. Apparently deciding she could stretch her magical time on the dance floor no further, she looked up at Ethan and sighed. "Good-bye for now."

She slipped between Billy and his cousin, passing by the smiling Nathan, who'd been a silent but amused observer of the whole proceeding.

Simultaneously, and with a tone that Billy found uncomfortably similar, he and Ethan both called after the retreating Irishwoman, "Good-bye."

Copyright © 2010 by Anthony W. Artuso