July 4th, 1895 — Padmore Park

Noble huffed out a breath and sat down heavily on the bench. He'd wanted to get away from the house, but now that he was away from the house he just felt guilty, like he ought to return to it to do — something. Work more, maybe. He pushed a hand through his hair and looked at his worn pocket watch. Five minutes. He could walk back in five minutes.

He slumped at the bench and worried at his cuticles. He didn't really want to interact with anyone while he was here — it was a dreary summer day, humid with likely rain coming soon — and so of course a woman's handkerchief came blowing lazily towards him. He caught it with a clumsy hand and stood up.

And there she was, the likely owner. Noble held up the cloth. "Yours?"

Matilda Farris Elias Grimstone

  

---

set by Lady

This was irritating to the maximum – when the housemaid (a girl half a dozen years older than her, and otherwise quite dull) who was supposed to be chaperoning her on some boring errands around Hogsmeade had waylaid them both in the park, and had shirked her duties to stand about flirting with some gardener she knew instead.

Mattie wasn’t about to protest to losing her company briefly – she was in view, so there was not much of interest she could do here, with or without her – but wandering listlessly about the park alone by herself seemed pathetic at best. She would not say she ever got lonely, but – there was something about envying a housemaid or the gathering weather or this slow week of her summer that had her feeling suddenly put out, restless.

She had spotted the lone occupant of the bench while wandering idly in his direction, though whether she had let the handkerchief fly on purpose or simply because she had been toying with it, she didn’t quite know. “Yes,” Mattie said as she strode after it at a picked-up pace, and reached him as he stood. “Though you look more in want of it than me,” she pointed out nonchalantly – and never mind that it was entirely impolite; she couldn’t resist prodding ever so slightly, because he did look visibly out of sorts. She raised her eyebrows, more in teasing than in any sympathy. “Would you like to keep it?”

---

  

---

Noble was — not particularly used to being teased by a stranger. Despite himself, and despite the way that things were still feeling oppressive here even if they were less oppressive than they were at home, Noble's mouth twisted just slightly into a bemused smile.

"Are you in the habit of giving strangers your handkerchief?" Noble asked. She was alone, also — he usually did not see girls like this alone. That made her intriguing — even if Noble suspected that she would not be alone for long.

  

---

set by Lady

“Just the handsome ones,” Mattie said first purely because she could, with her makeshift chaperone too far away and too preoccupied to overhear. “...No,” she admitted after, once she had properly considered the question, and him, for a moment. “I suppose you’re the first.”

(Some great honour that was, so charitable a gift – a plain folded square of cloth, with a little lace edging.)

“Do you mind if I sit?” It was a public bench, so he could hardly refuse – and so, restless as she was, Mattie flopped down into the space beside where he had just been sitting.

---

  

---