country dance; a cut above the company

He hops out from the carriage without much effort.

"Oh no! We're so late -" says Lucy, as she tries to get out as quickly as possible.

Tom holds out his hand to his little cousin, Lucy. "Oh thank you, Tom!"

"Hurry - hurry!" she says as she glances back towards her mother, and his aunt.

They stand over the top, watching the group for a moment. Tom spots a certain someone, who amuses him greatly. It's that Miss Austen. Some clumsy lout has just stepped over her foot. She glances up. He smiles, amusedly.

---

"...Well, I call it very high, indeed. Refusing to dance when there are so few gentlemen."

Henry glances at her, then briefly towards something behind her. "Jane."

"Henry." She continues, and Henry gestures towards something. Tom exchanges an amused look with his friend.

"Jane," he warns again.

"Are all your friends so disagreeable?" she continues without fail. "Where exactly in Ireland does he come from, anyway?"

"Limerick, Miss Austen."

For a moment, the group pauses. Slowly, smiles begin to cross their faces.

Jane slowly turns around in what appears to be embarrassed realization. Tom's expression hardly changes, though he wonders what could bring a girl like Jane to view him in such a way - so seemingly below her - when she hardly seems experienced in what he has seen for himself. It is, to be quite honest, intriguing.

Daring to prove her views of him wrong, and remembering Will's rather forceful advice, he smoothly asks of her, "I would regard it as a mark of extreme favour if you would stoop to honor me with this next dance."

She stares at him, as though calculating his intentions. He simply watches her, a true mark of innocence. He awaits her reply, half-expecting her to refuse him, but knowing propriety would forbid her from doing so.

"...all right." Henry takes her glass and Tom bows, leading her down the staircase and towards the floor to join the rest of the dancing couples. The band starts up another song.

Aligned with the others in the room, they stand across from each other before bowing their heads. The music is light and very active, getting them to move to the rhythm in particular movements as is asked of the dance, making short turns about each other.

"Being the first to dance with me madam," he starts, "I feel it only fair to inform you that you carry the standard for Hampshire hospitality."

"Ah - then your country reputation depends on my report." She turns to look at him, pausing as they wait for the other couples to have their turn before it is theirs. Her expression is cheeky, slightly daring. He responds in kind with another blank look in her direction. "This, by the way, is called a country dance," she explains, "after the French: contre dance."

They dance. They make short jaunty steps around the couple to their left before joining hands as they continue the assembly.

"Not because it is exhibited at an uncouth rural assembly." Uncouth? Tom thinks, raising an eyebrow. For a woman brought up in this world of so-called 'uncouth rural assemblies', she certainly speaks of it negatively. "With gluttinous pies. Execrable Madeira, and truly anarchic dancing."

His amusement rises as he tells her, "You judge the company severely, ma'am."

"Mm - I was describing what you would be thinking."

Oh, is that so? "Allow me to think for myself," says Tom.

"Give me leave to do the same, sir, and come to a different conclusion."

The dance forces them to pause in their conversation, as it had done so several times this evening. It allows Tom to gather a sense of this young woman for all that she is, and all that she has said to him thus far. Most peculiar, the way she assumes his thoughts. While mostly true, he must admit that this is one of the less dreaded visits.

Indeed, it hasn't been particularly bad thus far.

"Will you give so much to a woman?" she asks as they come together once more.

"It must depend on the woman," replies Tom. "And what she thinks of me."

"But you are -" she pauses for only a breath's moment before continuing, "above being pleased."

"And I think that you, Miss - what was it?"

"Austen," she replies. "Mister..."

"Lefroy."

Most amusing, indeed, if she is to assume that this is how he thinks, when perhaps - well... "I think that you, Miss Austen, consider yourself a cut above the company." Standing beside each other, they take several steps forward, before they must break apart again to take the hands of the couple beside them.

She looks at him incredulously. "Me?"

They separate again momentarily, taking a turn around another person as the dance begins to come to its conclusion.

"You, ma'am." Pausing, he allows himself to smile more to himself than anything. "Secretly."

As the music fades, the crowd applauds the band for a wonderful dance. Tom and Jane join in politely. Tom is certain he has succeeded in ruffling her feathers when it was she, most likely, who had tried to do the very same to him.

He begins to walk off, leaving her with those last words.

experience is vital to an author's works

Tom is in the library, reading a book - the book Jane had mentioned previously, he recalls.

There is a sudden sound from behind the bookshelf - a squeaking of steps.

"Miss Austen."

Nervous laughter. "Ah - huh. Mr Lefroy."

Polite bowing.

Almost surprised, or perhaps suspicious, she asks, "Good reading?"

"Yes." Amused. "I've been looking through your book of the wood." He lifts the book up to view the spine as he recites: "Mr White's Natural History."

"Oh." She shrugs. "Well, how do you like it?"

"I cannot get on. It is too disturbing."

Incredulously, "Disturbing?"

He nods. "Take this observation." He opens the book, flipping to one of his more 'favourite' passages, one he had bookmarked in the event that he did run into Miss Austen. He clears his throat, and begins to read.

"Swifts on a fine morning in May, flying this way, that way, sailing around at a great height perfectly happily. Then..."

He looks up, awaiting her anticipation. He continues.

"Then one leaps onto the back of another, grasps tightly, and forgetting to fly, they both sink down and down in a great, dying fall, fathom after fathom, until the female utters..."

"Yes?" she prompts.

He looks at her, wondering how anyone could read this novel at all, and continues. "The female utters a loud, piercing cry...of ecstasy."

They look at each other for a moment, Jane looking more and more embarrassed, and perhaps regretful that she had ever mentioned the book in the first place. No, then. She had never read it, he thinks.

"Is this conduct commonplace in the natural history of Hampshire?" he asks, innocently. His smile is amused as he quirks his lips.

She struggles to say something - anything - and Tom snaps the book shut, a slow grin appearing.

"Your ignorance is understandable, since you lack...what shall we call it?" He pauses. "The history."

"Propriety commands me to ignorance," she says by way of excuse. She begins to walk off towards the other side of the bookshelf, but Tom will not let her go that easily. He follows, his path parallel to hers, though he walks along the windowside.

"Condemns you to it," he corrects, "and your writing to the status of female accomplishment."

She doesn't move.

"If you wish to practice the art of fiction...to be equal of a masculine author, experience is vital."

She turns slowly towards the bookshelf, fingers gliding across several spines as though she is wondering whether his advice is of any use, or whether she can easily discard it. "I see," she says. "And what qualifies you to offer this advice?"

He folds his hands behind his back, book still in his grasp as he watches her interestedly. He starts to walk towards her. "I know more of the world."

She laughs sarcastically. "A great deal more, I gather..." Her tone is daring, and he wonders just what she may have heard concerning...well, perhaps his reputation.

He lets that slide, as he hardly cares what she thinks of him. Right now, his intrigue of her apparent intelligence is enough to make him want to help her - or at least direct her to another world of possibilities. "Enough to know that your horizons," he tells her with all the confidence in the world, "must be ... widened."

She has, by now, picked up a book, and has begun to thumb through it. He already knows just the book he wants to recommend to her in return.

She stops.

"By an extraordinary young man," he says as he turns to walk back to the bookshelf opposite her, fingers already grasping for the title he is looking for: Henry Fielding's The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling.

"By a very dangerous young man," she corrects. "One who has, no doubt, infected the hearts of many a young -"

He is hardly listening to her, as he grabs the book and waits for her to finish. "Young - woman, with the soft corrupt -"

She stops directly in front of him, looking obviously flustered.

"Read this," he interrupts, as he starts to take several steps back, "and you will understand."

He bows and begins to walk off once more, leaving her with the recommended book.