The Creeping Darkness

I.

In which a young lady attempts to keep herself amused during a very dull teatime.

Charlotte Penny's yawn was just loud enough to prompt a disapproving scowl from her mother.

Mrs. Penny had been happily enmeshed in a discussion with their neighbor, the widowed Mrs. Hemwurst, wherein the two were debating whether or not the odious Mrs. Kensington's choice of gloves during the Sunday service was enough to finally have her expelled from society (Mrs. Penny was certain this would be the final straw, and Mrs. Hemwurst was less convinced).

Charlotte flashed her mother an innocently confused smile, as if she could hardly imagine what crime she had committed. Fortunately, Mrs. Hemswurst did not notice. She nibbled her diminuitive watercress sandwich in between words, declaring, "Now, Mary, I know you despise her, but until her defects of character are revealed to the parish, she will be able to maintain her façade of decency!"

Fortunately, this was enough to distract Mrs. Penny from scolding her daughter. "It's an outrage. Her flirtatious eyes simply cannot be going unnoticed by Pastor Emerson, he's usually such an observant man!"

Charlotte remained sitting stiffly as a statue, staring past them at the faded damask wallpaper and collection of bric-a-brac that decorated Mrs. Hemswurst's parlour. She felt some relief that her excessive decorating taste gifted one with the pleasure of having something else to look at when they had grown weary of pretending to follow a conversation.

Goodness, what left was there to use as a distraction? She had already re-tied the green ribbon on her coiffure, and arranged the contents of her reticule twice. Her teacup had been emptied, and no one had refilled the teapot, but it would have been in tremendously poor taste to attempt to rectify this herself. It was the host's duty to ring for a maid, and Mrs. Hemswurst was now musing over the social intricacies of pairing a proper hat to the occasion, with Mrs. Penny eagerly supplying her own decrees on the subject.

She was considering a polite prompt for their host - perhaps complimenting the tea would prompt Mrs. Hemswurst to notice its absence? Oh, but how strange it would be, to compliment tea when one's cup had been empty for a full ten minutes - when a topic finally was broached that caught her attention.

"Why, my Charlotte has been out in society for a full year now, but as you may recall, she has only received one proposal. That poor Dunley boy, I thought for sure his heart would be broken. Mended it quick enough to marry Eliza Penderghast though, didn't he?"

"Mama, he was a cad," Charlotte protested. "I mean, it would be dreadful to have such ill-bred manners in the family." Appealing to the reputation of the Penny house seemed a wiser strategy than to complain about having the opportunity to finally ease her mother's burdens.

"I never saw any of that. Mr. Dunley was always entirely gracious to me."

Charlotte drily noted that her mother's eagerness to rebuke a social ill did not seem to apply in the same degree to the gentlemen in her acquaintance as it did the ladies.

Mrs. Penny continued. "His family is throwing a ball next week in honour of the regiment returning to London, but at this point, it would be too great an embarrassment to accept his invitation. Mrs. Dunley is expecting, you know. Did you hear about that, Charlotte?"

She had, many times, but was far more intrigued by the previous point. The regiment was returning? Charlotte felt a flutter in her chest. It had been ages since she'd received a correspondence from Henry Ransom. Each envelope was always properly addressed to the family as a whole, of course, but his little asides about the weather, or sights on the campaign, were intended as messages to her alone, as he'd agreed before he'd left.