July 5th, 1892 — Daphnel Dinner Party, Wellingtonshire

Victor was well aware that tonight wasn't for him, because this wasn't the first time they'd done some variation on this exact same event. It was hard to deny that Beatrice stood little chance of capturing someone's attention in a typical ballroom setting, but whether dinner parties and parlor games were any more likely to suit her was yet to be determined, as far as Victor was concerned. They'd been throwing dinner parties and game nights and that sort of 'intimate' gathering for two years already, and Bea wasn't married yet. She hadn't even had an offer that Victor was aware of — and he doubted anyone had expressed an interest by sending a letter to his chronically absent father, so if there had been an offer he was sure he would have been aware. Anyway, tonight was for Bea, but that didn't mean that Victor had a pass. He had promised his mother that she wouldn't have to worry about his prospects when it came to romance, and he was determined to keep his word on that front — which meant he couldn't spend the night watching Beatrice like a hawk and trying to prod her towards conversation whenever he could. He needed to actually put forth an effort to meet someone.

If only that someone didn't have to be a debutante. Presumably some of these women must have been interesting, if one got to know them in any other context than brief society encounters, but devil help him if he was meant to know which ones. All debutantes seemed the same from his perspective... which made the task of trying to choose one of them a daunting one.

"Are you musically inclined?" Victor asked the young woman he'd found himself talking to, already sensing that he would forget her answer within two minutes of hearing it. He only had... four to six more hours of this to go. They hadn't even sat down to dinner yet.

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Hurling-ish; open to a woman. You should know: Victor intends to propose this year and I intend for him to die this year so it's sort of an exciting race to see who accomplishes their goals first.

  

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Fabulous set by Lady!

"Oh yes," Octavia Rose chimed, smiling up at the man as he caught her attention. It wasn't hard to identify him once she'd looked up. She wasn't graceless after all. Who would go to an event - especially something of this kind without being able to know the faces of their host? "Though please don't ask me to sing, Mr. Daphnel, or else I'm afraid I might hurt your ears. I'm far better with instruments." A very much true statement. She'd long since given up singing to guests years before. Besides, like she said, why would she sing if she had something that she could do that wouldn't scare suitors away?

"What about you, do you sing or play?" Okay she might recognize him, but she knew next to nothing about him other than he was likely someone her mother would deem suitable.

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Lady makes such lovely things.

Instruments, she said, but didn't specify which. Probably all of them, at least on paper. She probably spoke three languages, too, but only one or two of them well. That seemed to be the way of things for debutantes; they racked up accomplishments so that they could secure a marriage, without ever having any real interest in or passion for any of them.

"I had piano lessons as a child, but I haven't touched it since Hogwarts," he admitted. He'd dropped music in third year, as soon as he was able to replace it with something more serious on his course roster. Music may have been useful for women, to some extent, but aside from being able to appreciate an occasional concert and recognize the tempo of a dance it had little bearing on the life of a gentleman.

"What is it you play?" he asked, less because he wanted to know and more because he couldn't think of any better questions.

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Fabulous set by Lady!

There was an immediate stark contrast to the the last man she'd had this conversation with. Mr. Selwyn had, rather than having no interest at all, had immediately joined in, discussing their favorite pieces. Hindsight being, she wasn't even sure how much of that had been truthful or how much of his words were just words he thought she wanted to hear.

"Piano, harp, the expected ones," Tavie replied in an offhanded manner. "But my favorite is the guzheng. My grandmother taught me when I was a girl whenever we would visit her in China. It is sort of like the inside of a piano if you laid it out open and pluck it as you would a harp." Unlike a few minutes before, the smile on her face was real, not just one she wore as part of her outfit. Those trips they taken as girls had been some of her favorite memories and she missed her grandmother dearly. They hadn't gone since her second year, when Diana had debuted herself.

"If you aren't really that interested in music, why do you use that as a conversation starter?"

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Lady makes such lovely things.

The Chinese instrument was at least original enough to be moderately interesting, though he wasn't sure he'd be able to ask many questions about it given his general lack of musical inclination. Before he could think it through and ask anything, though, she had changed the subject — or rather, twisted it slightly.

"Being a gracious conversationalist," he replied, unfazed by what he interpreted as a hint of accusation in her question. "If I started conversations with subjects that were of most interest to me, most young women would have nothing to say."

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Fabulous set by Lady!

So he starts with conversations of no interest to him? How did that make sense? It surely wouldn't last if he didn't know what he was talking about. How could it? Still, she hadn't meant to make her question sound like she was trying to pick a fight. She had to wheel back less he thought she was.

"Surely we aren't so foreign as that we cannot find a single interest to overlap, sir," Eyelashes fluttered as she twisted away, looking back into the crowd before them. "We can find something now. What about theater? Books? A favorite subject? A hobby? Are you fond of animals? Do you have a pet? A favorite place to dine? Sports - do you enjoy polo or other games?"

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Lady makes such lovely things.

What was this, an interrogation? Miss F (they had been introduced but now he couldn't recall if she was a Fawley or Farley or something else) had seized upon this issue with vigor, apparently determined to find something they could bond over. He supposed he had to admire her tenacity... or would have, had he not been on the receiving end of it.

"And you have a reserve of interesting opinions on all of those subjects, I suppose?" he asked, sardonic. It was a rhetorical question; he didn't doubt that she'd been coached in opinions on everything, or that she found them all sufficiently deep, only that they would prove at all interesting to him.

"I prefer theater to opera and comedies to tragedies. The last book I read was Fine's Treatise of Advanced Mathematics and its influence on Magical Theory. What I'm reading now is Lockthwaite's Unintended Consequences of Experimental Spellwork. I enjoy chess. I ride horses but usually don't play polo unless prevailed upon." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Have I passed your inspection?"

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Fabulous set by Lady!

Goodness forbid, was this man looking to pick a fight? For goodness sake, he was the one who'd started talking to her! Why was he acting like her trying to continue the conversation was the equivalent of dragging him through the slums or something? If he was trying to drive her off, well he was certainly close to succeeding. Petty as it was, she had every intention of ranting to her friends and Di about him later.

"Likely not, but maybe so. I just thought if you were going to start a conversation we might as well both enjoy it." she offered with a shrug, brown eyes briefly narrowed at Victor. But he answered her anyway, so she shuffled through everything. Most she could comment on, except...

Treatise of Advanced Mathematics and its influence on Magical Theory? She'd never even learned more than the bare basics of mathematics - just enough to manage her pocket change. But she'd just brush past that one. "I have to agree about theater. I feel like there is a broader range of emotion to it. But while I don't mind comedies, sometimes a tragedy can be nice - well, not nice, but you know what I mean. But... unintended consequenses?" Tavie inquired. She wasn't a scholar by any means but it sounded like it might have interesting oops stories.

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Lady makes such lovely things.

What did she mean, likely not? What could he possibly have said that she would find questionable? His taste was impeccable and his intellectual curiosities were fascinating. If she didn't think so, that most likely meant that she wasn't well-read enough to follow along. On its own it wasn't damning; he didn't expect women to share his intellectual interests. If she felt threatened by someone who was smarter than her, though, they clearly could share nothing beyond a dance. Perhaps he'd do better to end this conversation sooner rather than later and invest his time elsewhere.

"...of Experiential Spellwork, yes," he said, with slight impatience. "It's a professional interest. I'm a healer."

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Fabulous set by Lady!

"Oh?" she voiced, surprised at this development for as much as she knew about the host - which in hindsight, she did admit was quite vague - she hadn't known he was anything other than a gentleman of leisure. "You are a healer, Mr. Daphnel? I take it you work with spell reversal then?" She wondered if he ever worked with Henri when she'd gone in if that was the case.

"I only meant to ask after what was in the book, sir," Tavie explained, his comment imply she wasn't that bright floating over her head as she smiled, fluttering her eyes. "Sure then, between the book and your job, you've surely some fascinating tales of of said consequenses?"

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Lady makes such lovely things.

Her response hadn't made him feel any more invested in the conversation, but it did make the prospect of enduring it a few minutes more slightly more appealing. She'd shown an appropriate level of interest in and respect for his profession, and she was apparently willing to turn the talking over to him to ramble on about spell effects if he desired. Cynically, he suspected this was less out of graciousness or genuine interest and more because she felt it was safer to let him speak than try to force any more common ground to rise up between them, but no matter. It wasn't the worst topic he'd ever been asked to expand on.

"I'm Assistant Head of Spell Damage," he responded. "Some of the best are the ironic ones. People tinkering with spells to try and get a bigger effect, and inadvertently giving themselves exactly the opposite."

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Fabulous set by Lady!

Apparently all she needed to do to get a conversation back on track with a man was to ask about himself, which was really no surprise. "Oh, how impressive!" Tavie stated with a bright grin, peering up at Victor as she rolled her weight back into her heels, the tips already pinching her toes.

Tinker with spells? People did that? It certainly wasn't something that had ever crossed her mind. Octavia Rose's relationship with magic had always been one of convenience and ease. She didn't need but it made her life easier. Even in school, her classes had been dictated by what she found fun, not what was relevant or needed. She'd never needed to stretch what magic did. "What is the silliest example you've ever seen? Or the most memorable?"

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   Victor Daphnel

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Lady makes such lovely things.

Victor's smile faltered slightly when she asked him for the silliest thing he had seen. He didn't consider his profession silly, and it would have been grating to answer a question which framed any of his work as frivolous. This wasn't a lady's needlework hobby; people's health and occasionally their lives were on the line. Miss F amended her question to most memorable quickly enough that he was appeased, however, so his smile returned as he considered his answer.

"I shouldn't really say. Our patients trust us to keep things confidential," Victor began, though he fully intended to tell her something; he just hadn't decided on which story. "But we had one bloke trying to make himself taller by adding a few inches to each of his legs, and he accidentally disappeared one entirely, so that his ankle was coming straight off his hip. That was certainly memorable. We set him to rights," Victor added. "And he may have actually ended up an inch or two taller by the time we were done. It's not as though any of us knew how tall he was supposed to be."

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Fabulous set by Lady!

For a second, Tavie thought that would be it. That he was simply going to dangle it before her and off he would go leaving her to her annoyance. But then he moved on, dropping the act. "By goodness! That sounds like it would be painful! Disappearing your whole leg?" Magic? To make yourself taller? That was silly! Unless this gentleman was of the same height as a woman. She could see how that would be embarrassing. But then who wouldn't notice someone growing an inch or two from the last ball you saw them at? Even she would! "That is so impressive that you were able to fix that though, I wouldn't even know where to start!"

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Lady makes such lovely things.

Well, obviously. You aren't a healer, Victor thought, a little unkindly. She probably meant nothing by it, or had even intended it as a compliment. Enough people in his past had shrugged off his profession like it was easy, though, that comments like this tended to irk him now. It wasn't as though everyone with a NEWT in Charms could walk into the hospital and set things to rights — and when they tried to correct their own mistakes at home, they usually made things worse.

"So what's the last book you've read?" he asked. He was aware that he'd been talking about himself for a stretch and ought to pass the baton back to her, and with this question there was at least a chance that he'd care about the answer.

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Fabulous set by Lady!

She froze, a little sense of reluctance creeping up her spine at his question. It was easy enough to tell he preferred academics while she had never cared for it much, even while in school. She'd gone on into her N.E.W.T.s just because it was what was expected of her, not because she actually wanted to. And her initial read on Mr. Daphnel - though he might prove her wrong - was that anything of the sort of stuff she might like was something he'd look down on. But she knew she wasn't clever enough to keep a lie, not about this. What if she said something that she thought sounded smart and then he actually asked her questions about it?

"Oh... I'm reading something about a debutante's travels. It was originally a journal and she talks about the different countries she travels to." She might have intentionally left out the bit about the book also being about her budding relationship. It seemed less... frivolous without that detail and she hated that he made her feel ashamed about what she enjoyed. So what if she wasn't some sort of snuff scholar? She'd like to see him try to host.

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   Victor Daphnel

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Lady makes such lovely things.