Chapter Text
Henry Tilney, it must be said, enjoyed a good bout of flirting. He always had. Henry had a way with the ladies; they found him amusing and he found them charming, and though his intentions were never serious, he did not think he had broken any hearts. It was play-acting rather than love-making, and it was an arrangement that was acceptable for each of the parties involved.
And so it was one of the unexpected pleasures of life at Woodston that every Sunday he was given the chance to make himself agreeable to a whole host of elegant women, all of them very pleased indeed to smirk and simper and smile at their amiable young clergyman. Henry was happy to flirt with every single one, but he had a group of special favorites: Miss Thorne, Miss White, and Miss Finch, close friends who did not mind being their dear Mr. Tilney’s combined object.
“And how are the three loveliest ladies in the parish today?” he asked them, gratified that they broke immediately into giggles, glad to hear that they were all well. “Miss Thorne, I declare that I am fondest of that particular shade of blue, and I must say that it becomes you splendidly. Miss White, is that a new bonnet? Not new at all, only newly-trimmed? I would never have guessed. Miss Finch, I suspect that you beaded that reticule yourself, and a fine job you have made of it, too.”
They exchanged looks and laughed at his little compliments, paying him their own on the neatness of his surplice and the brevity of his sermon, and they all went on in this way for some time more before Henry thought it prudent to break away.
“For if I do not go now,” he told them, “people will talk.”
This was unlikely. Miss Thorne, Miss White, and Miss Finch were all in their seventies.
Still, they were enormously good company, and Henry was exceedingly fond of them; he would not exchange their society for all the world.