3rd November, 1894 — Farris Parlour, Swallowbury

It may no longer be the height of the Season, but one could not simply hunker down and hibernate until May. Mattie would rather not hibernate until May, at any rate. To her, learning a new piece of music at the pianoforte or embracing a new embroidery project were both as good as hibernating, and there were not many books in the house she had not already read. Sundays in Irvingly were little better fare for entertainment: only church in the mornings, and then watching the village drunks wanders towards the Irvingly Arms in the square. Still, the afternoon had at least brought with it calling hour – and today Mattie was so restless and bored that she would take any company at all, in whatever form it came.

Someone had dropped by, but not until a half-hour after her father had left to the Glen, with some report from the Head Dragonkeeper there about one of their dragons due to undergo some medical operation to heal it – and of course her father had not been inclined to miss witnessing that. (Mattie had preferred to stay here than be left to her own devices at the Yarwoods’, for neither she nor the Yarwood boys were as keen on the thought of uniting their families in quite the way her father was.)

Instead she was playing hostess to the caller, and had received them in the parlour, the picture of grace. Their housekeeper was sitting in with her, as chaperone; Mrs. Cole was a woman of about sixty, but not so much a maternal figure, having had no children of her own; nevertheless, she was a little more shrewd than Mattie found her father. She had been darning some socks across the room as Mattie and her guest exchanged dull pleasantries; Mattie leapt up to the small parlour table to make the tea. She had passed the cups around, one to Mrs. Cole, and returned to the conversation. In a few minutes, Mrs. Cole’s head had drooped forwards in her chair, the sock dropped in her lap; and she was snoring soundly.

Mattie bit her lip to suppress the smile. Now privacy had turned from relative to complete, she felt a weight lift off her, and so she flitted from her seat to sit beside them, more daringly, on the sofa. “Poor dear,” she whispered, nodding her head towards the sleeping housekeeper. “She works herself too much. We really mustn’t wake her.”

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open to a caller of any kind! a man for hurling/mischief? a friend of hers for gossip? a friend or associate of her father's for #awks?
feel free to assume they have met previously!

  

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Declan had started making visits like this when he was promoted to Assistant Printer, but he had never started liking them. He preferred his interactions with the middle and upper classes to be conducted from the safety of the printshop, or the safety of other shops, or when he was trying to get wealthy people to bet on his boxing so that he may make some money off of them. Simply put, he preferred them to be in places where he understood easy rules — or in the safety of his notebook, where he sometimes jotted down fantasies about his latest out-of-his-league crush. Once he was in their homes — or their offices — the rules were much more complicated. He had not even thought that this visit to Mr. Farris would be difficult. No one had told him about the daughter.

It was Declan's understanding that Mr. Farris was supposed to be home; the housekeeper had insisted that he sit down and take tea. Declan kept wiping his palms against his trousers, because his palms were sweating. There were, luckily, no inkstains on his hands today — but he felt abundantly aware of the darns in his coat. Once Mrs. Cole fell asleep, Declan thought that maybe he would be able to leave — but then the daughter sat next to him.

Heat spread from Declan's neck and up to his face, reddening his cheeks — he took a sip of his tea, so that perhaps he could chalk the expression on his face to heat from it. (He doubted that he would be so lucky.) "Oh," Declan whispered, back to her. "Did — did Mr. Farris say when he would get back?"

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   Matilda Farris

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set by Bee

There had been no world in which Mattie would have let this untimely visitor slip through her finger, however shabby his coat was. In fact, she had since decided that the shabbiness of his clothes accentuated his charm: and money certainly could not buy stature like that. She would have liked to see him less put together than anything. Perhaps with his sleeves rolled up, to better prove just how muscular he actually was – but that seemed an unlikely outcome, given how uncomfortable he already looked sitting on the sofa, sipping tea from a cup and saucer like he had come to call. Of course, now she knew of his existence she could always find some reason to visit the printer’s herself, and see if she could catch him at work, in full swing... But she hadn’t yet given up on the possibility of getting him to take his coat off, here and now. She was rather invested in divesting him of it, actually. She was sure she could find a way.

But of course that demanded his staying a while longer – and, tragically, Mr. Buchanan already seemed itching to go. Either it was warm in here, or he was blushing: his cheeks were ruddy. Mattie was near enough to witness this, and she was not polite enough to pretend to be looking at something else to avert her gaze from him.

If she hadn’t tossed the sleeping Mrs. Cole another glance since the snores had started sounding, it was not from carelessness. In fact, from pure forethought of planning, there was simply no need to – Mattie had schemes upon schemes stored up for rainy days, and since her father had already been out of the house, there had been no one to prevent her from slipping a sleeping draught into the housekeeper’s tea, along with her milk. So there was really no chance of Mrs. Cole waking and cramping Mattie’s style for some time – nor was Mr. Farris likely to be back for at least another forty-five minutes or maybe an hour. But she couldn’t say that, or Mr. Buchanan would feel obliged to go.

“I’m quite sure he’ll be back soon,” Mattie whispered back, widening her eyes in mock-earnest. “He wasn’t meant to be gone long at all. Did you come for the proof corrections of one of his chapters?” (His academic work usually had to go through a few rounds of editing pre-printing; they were working chapter by chapter through his latest book, receiving and checking and correcting pages, adjusting layouts and any compositing errors before the chapters could go to print officially.) “Oh, please say you’ll wait for him to get back, Mr. Buchanan. He’ll be furious to think he missed you,” she entreated him – and he would be a little annoyed, but Mattie might be exaggerating her father’s reaction for effect, because she thought the printer might feel bad for her, and thus duty-bound to stay. She touched her hand hopefully to the printer’s forearm to mean stay, to impress the urgency of her plea upon him.

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She was looking at him, and looking earnest with her eyes wide, and Declan was really struggling with this. Tess was going to laugh and laugh at him, when he went back to Whitby & Co. and told her about it. Declan was ready to make his excuses and leave, because he was staring at Miss Farris and not managing an answer, and if he couldn't answer her then he could hardly make small talk until her father was home.

Except Mr. Farris could be angry. And if Mr. Farris was angry, it would be bad for Tess, and bad for Declan, and Fabian and probably also the Whitby girls would make fun of him.

Declan swallowed. He took a sip of his tea, and swallowed that. So finally he managed, "If you don't mind sitting with me, I can certainly wait for Mr. Fa — your father." Calling him Mr. Farris to his daughter was weird, right? He didn't know. He didn't talk to debutantes. Why had they landed on him for this?

"It is the newest proof of one of his chapters," Declan added, because if he had answered one of her questions it seemed important to answer all of them. "We edited the font for the page number as he requested, too — I did the adjustments myself."

  

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set by Bee

She had successfully pressured him into staying, then – if this were a game, she was having fun with it already. He seemed to be... struggling with his tea, and with talking to her, and with keeping the colour of his cheeks from rising, which made him a delightful candidate for her entertainment.

He seemed most comfortable talking about said proof adjustments, which was dull, but – gave her an idea. “Oh, that’s perfect of you!” Mattie said breathlessly, as if nothing in the world could compare to edited fonts of page numbers. “Here,” she suggested, slipping his teacup from his hand and setting them aside, then tugging at his arm to make him stand up with her, “why don’t we put it in his study, ready for you both to go through? That way we won’t disturb Mrs. Cole while we wait, and I can look out the next pages he wants to give you.” Mattie probably could do that, if she wanted – her father made her double-check all his page numbers and indexing anyway, so she knew his study inside and out – but it was not her immediate priority.

Either he would be more relaxed and amenable to humouring her, if he were simultaneously distracted by professional concerns, or he would blush himself into oblivion on the way. They would see. But without allowing him to protest, she curled her fingers around his wrist, in order to lead the way out of the parlour and away from Mrs. Cole’s sleeping form.

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Declan knew that he was being a bit too pliant, but the thought of holding onto the teacup against Miss Farris' wishes felt impossible. He was a guest here, after all — and if being a guest meant that he would have to try to fight back his own embarrassment while she dragged him around like a rag doll, then so be it. (This was what he was telling himself, because he — was distinctly stuck.)

He couldn't pull his wrist out of her hand, but he balled up his own hands with his discomfort. "You're sure he won't mind?" Declan asked, trying for wary even though his tone was still clearly just nervous. Wandering around the house with Miss Farris seemed like a terrible idea, and not just because his palms were sweating now that she was tugging him around.

  

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set by Bee

“Quite sure,” Mattie said, smirking privately to herself at his uncertain tone. “I expect that our taking such initiative will only recommend your services to him more highly.”

“It’s just here,” she added, tossing a friendly smile at him for reassurance, as she let go of him to open the door and usher him through first into her father’s study. It was neatly kept, but rather brimming with books and papers and things.

But never mind about them. The printer’s services were certainly more highly recommended to her when they presented her with some eye candy and some personal amusement. Mattie left the door a touch ajar behind them – she supposed this would soothe his sense of propriety, and she didn’t need to worry about any impediment from drugged Mrs. Cole – and merely took a moment to appreciate his stature from the back. She did feel a little like she had been treated to a new toy for the afternoon.

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Miss Farris was friendly, but in a way that Declan found frightening — when wealthy women were friendly, he was prone to either never knowing what to say, or to falling half in love with them and spending a season pining. (Often the latter was paired with the former.) At least the door was ajar; nothing scandalous ever happened when the door was ajar.

Declan took the pages out of his bag. "Where does he like them set?" he asked, because things were neat but busy in here, and he expected that Mr. Farris was the sort of man who had very specific thoughts on where his proof corrections ought to be placed.

  

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set by Bee