“I’d be delighted,” she smiled. C.J stood up, in her soft-soled dancing slippers. “You tower above me,” she laughed, looking up at her new friend. “Are you sure you don’t want to dance with a lankier lady?”
“I’ve been coming to the English country dance sessions every Tuesday night for four years, and you are my favorite dance partner ever.”
C.J. looked about the room at the other dancers, most of whom were in their forties and fifties, and smiled to herself. If they had all been living during the actual periods of the dances—the Georgian and Regency eras—most of them would be considered rather ancient, if they reached that age at all, thanks to poor diets and limited medical knowledge. No penicillin. No prophylactic fix-ups.
Wow! she thought, if they had been Georgians, Matthew would be in the prime of life, and she—goodness!—pushing thirty, would be an absolute on-the-shelf spinster. Her prime would have been over by the time she reached her early twenties. Forget kids; she would have had very little chance for a husband at her age.
C.J. had never considered herself wholly at ease in the twenty-first century. The constant barrage of images and noise, the relentless pace, the seemingly unlimited rudeness of some people. Hip-hop. Cell phones. All of that set her teeth on edge. Oh for a truly kinder, gentler world where quiet and a sense of delicacy and respect—of fellow feeling—were the norm.
Barbara Gordon, one of the workshop callers, took her place in front of the microphone at the far end of the gym. “Okay, if everybody could form sets longways—I think we have enough people for three lines—‘old’ people, invite some of the ‘new’ people to dance. Get ready for ‘Apley House.’ ” Barbara nodded to the trio of musicians—piano, violin, and flute.
The musty church basement was not exactly atmospheric for anything but a sock hop, but once the musicians struck up their centuries-old country melodies, everyone seemed to forget all but the dances. In the dancers’ imaginations, their Keds became kidskin slippers, and eclectic cotton T-shirts magically metamorphosed into Empire-waisted sheer muslin gowns and tight chamois trousers.
Matthew bowed to C.J. “Miss Welles, would you do me the honor of joining me?”
C.J. placed her small hand in Matthew’s, wishing she were wearing elbow-length gloves. She rose and made a slight curtsy, allowing Matthew to lead her to the top of the set. “Are you crazy?” she whispered. “I’m not sure I know enough to lead!”
“Didn’t you study English country dancing at Vassar?” The music had begun; the dancers were honoring their partners and opposites, and listening intently to Barbara’s instructions as she began to call the dance.
C.J. looked down the set at some of the dumpier dancers, in their T-shirts and sweats, who were very game but hopelessly twenty-first century. “No, I didn’t. I studied period movement styles. The theatre program was very thorough, but English country dancing wasn’t even an elective.” She flashed Matthew a warm smile.
“Another reason I like to dance with you, apart from your grace,” Matthew said, while they set to the right and then to the left, light on their feet. “You love to play as much as I do.” He took her hands and they spun, giving themselves completely to the momentum of the music.
“That’s true enough,” C.J. agreed, and nodded at Matthew’s barrel chest encased in a perfect replica of a double-breasted vest, circa 1800, constructed of French-blue brocade. “Nice waistcoat. We’re such period geeks, aren’t we?!”
“I prefer the term aficionado.”
C.J. did a figure with her neighbor, a dour-faced matron who put her in mind of a vicar’s wife in a small Regency hamlet.
“Do you ever look at these people,” C.J. whispered softly to Matthew as they executed a back-to-back figure, “and think of them in period costumes, as townspeople in a Jane Austen novel?”
“All the time,” he grinned.
“Imagine the same faces—the same bodies, even—in cape collars and starched cravats!”
The dance ended. “Promise me the supper waltz,” Matthew pressed C.J.’s hand before he went in search of his next partner.
“Forgive me,” C.J. said as she made eye contact with Paul, another one of the callers, “but I love that they call it the supper break when we go into the kitchen for lemonade and Oreos.”
“Don’t you think they had Oreos in the early nineteenth century?”
“Of course they did. Even earlier, in fact. Poor Richard referred to them as one of the basic food groups in his Almanack.” C.J. winked, and curtsied to Matthew to thank him for the dance.
“May I have the honor?” Paul Hamilton asked.
“The honor would be mine, sir,” C.J. smiled demurely. Paul was a historian and a stickler for proper carriage and execution.
“You should never be looking at your next partner,” Paul had cautioned the assembly as part of his weekly litany. “It is the height of rudeness. Treat each partner as though he or she were the most important person on earth and give him or her your fullest attention. This is about flirting. For the three hours a week that you spend in this basement, you are not only allowed, but you are encouraged to flirt.” When Paul was on the floor, he was in great demand as a partner. His grace and manner seemed timeless. “May I give you a tiny correction?” he murmured in C.J.’s ear as he led her into the set. “You have such natural exuberance that you are a joy to watch as well as to dance with.”
“Thank you.” C.J. felt her cheeks go pink.
“But, if I may—you must execute your traveling steps more smoothly. Think of gliding. You have a tendency to bounce a bit, which is not as out of place in some of the more energetic dances, but it sticks out when you are cutting the more stately figures.”
“Does it make my bosom heave too much?” C.J. joked.
Paul’s gaze strayed to the ripe fullness of her chest. “As a man, I of course have
