And as Jacob was already acquainted with the vicar and his family—the Everseas owned the living in Pennyroyal Green—he cheerfully accepted an invitation to stay for dinner.
Whereupon Isolde’s mother spirited their everyday candelabra away from the dining table and whisked their one fine silver candelabra into its place, exchanging a wide-eyed, wondering glance with her husband as she did. They hadn’t even known that the Eversea heir and George were acquainted.
The flickering candlelight revealed to Isolde that Mr. Eversea sported a little cleft in his square chin and that his thick, black brows were what made his blue eyes seem unusually brilliant. He was in fact so arrestingly good looking that Isolde felt she had only two options: to stare in bald fascination, or look determinedly away in order to preserve her composure.
When Mr. Eversea’s head was turned toward her father, she stared.
If he recognized Isolde as the dancer at the folly, nothing apart from perhaps a certain amused crinkling at the corners of his eyes when they were introduced betrayed this. Then again, she’d changed out of her day dress and apron into her pink silk. Perhaps it was as good as a disguise.
It soon became clear that Mr. Eversea had no airs at all. His charm filled the room like sunlight.
He complimented the food and their décor with such sincere warmth her mother blushed like a girl, and he respectfully, almost diffidently asked her father for advice on a rare and costly book calledPoisonous Plants Native to Sussexhe was considering acquiring from Mr. Tingle. This was so precisely the way to get her parents to like him it was like witnessing a magic trick. Isolde was touched and amused, particularly because her instincts told her that Mr. Jacob Eversea didn’t have a diffident bone in his body.
This theory was supported by the fact that every time Mr. Eversea glanced in her direction during dinner his pupils flared like a candle flame caught in an updraft.
And every time they did, Isolde’s heart skipped in a painfully thrilling way.
“Jacob is always doing that,” George told everyone, as he accepted the gravy boat from the vicar. “Dragging me into tiny, cave-like bookshops so he can buy orphaned books emblazoned with long, eccentric titles.”
This made her father prop his head on his hands and beam fondly at the two boys, as if he could not imagine a more delightful pastime.
Isolde was happy and proud for George, because his easy, teasing rapport with Mr. Eversea suggested their friendship was genuine and equal, despite Mr. Eversea's heady social stature and the fact that the Sylvaine house could fit inside the Eversea house four times over. He seemed perfectly comfortable to be dining in a house where the food was passed around from hand to hand, rather than served by footmen.
“I’ve been looking in particular for books about China. My plan to is to spend a year or so there when I finish my education,” Jacob volunteered. “I’ve been preparing for it for quite some time now. I hope to be leaving in a few months.”
Devastation jolted Isolde. Just thejourneyby ship to China would take a year.
It seemed sickeningly inconceivable that this evening could very well be the last time she ever saw him.
“I believe I might be able to recommend a book or two on the subject of the Orient, Mr. Eversea,” her father mused. “We’ll have a look at my library. How did you and George happen to meet?”
“We’ve taken to studying in a little coffee house near university,” Jacob told her father. “As it so happens, we got caught up in a philosophical discussion because of a book I’d found. Us and Wyatt Neeley—you’ve met him—and a few others.”
“It was written by Reverend George Berkeley,” George confirmed. “He has some interesting ideas. Or mad ones, depending upon whom you ask.”
“Berkeley? I don’t think I’ve read him.” Her father sounded surprised, as his habits with regards to books were awfully similar to Jacob’s.
“Berkeley suggests something to the effect that objects exist only when they are perceived,” Jacob explained. “He used trees as an example—do they exist onlybecausewe look upon them?”
A little silence ensued as everyone pondered this absolutely astonishing possibility.
“Fascinating,” her father breathed finally, and Isolde knew he meant it because he was leaning forward on his elbows in the way he had when he wanted to plunge into a topic. “If I’m understanding you correctly…he’s positing, for example, that this dining table only existsbecausewe’re all currently perceiving it? That our perception creates reality?”
Everyone glanced somewhat nervously down at the dining table, as if it might dissolve into the ether.
“We all best continue to perceive it,” Isolde mused. “Lest we get gravy stains on the carpet.”
Mr. Eversea flashed a fleeting and heart-stopping grin at her, then turned back to her father.
“Yes, sir, that more or less sums up the theory,” Jacob concurred. “Or, to use another example…let’s say a beautiful, well-bred young woman is dancing alone in the woods and suddenly belches. If no one was about to hear it, would it make a sound?”
Isolde nearly choked.
Theaudacityof the man!
Her cheeks were instantly aflame.
Everyone laughed. Even her mother, who would have been horrified to learn Isolde had blithely hurled etiquette overboard like so much jetsam the moment she was out of sight of the house. Such were the charms of Jacob Eversea.
