The Excursion to Whitwell, Part 4

Marianne awoke to bright sunlight. She had not believed that she would sleep at all and was on the point of berating herself for such a lack of sensibility when she decided that Willoughby’s guilt militated against doing so. He was the one who deserved to spend a sleepless night, not she.

Nevertheless, she was far from rested and far from happy.

Sick of being alone with her misery and ready to avail herself of what solace could be found in the company of her family, she sought them out with determined steps, only faltering when a man’s voice reached her ears.

“I am for London almost this moment. I must see her,” he insisted, “before I go.”

She knew the voice as well as she knew her own. Part of her wished to fly back up the stairs and shut herself in her room. Part of her could not resist seeing his face again, searching it in hopes of finding something like remorse.

“Elinor?” she called, and Elinor was at her side at once, steadying her, lest she swoon. She had not felt at first how light-headed she had become.

“Marianne,” Willoughby and Elinor said together, the former having followed the latter.

“What do you do here?” Marianne said to Willoughby, looking fully at him and feeling tears begin to form.

“Marianne,” he pleaded, “I must speak to you.”

“Do you wish me to stay with you?” Elinor asked as she supported Marianne and walked with her to the parlour. “And you, sir,” she said over her shoulder at Willoughby, “I must request again that you kindly leave.”

“Do not worry, Elinor. He cannot harm me now.” Truly, whatever harm he could have done had already been accomplished. “I shall be quite safe here.” She blinked at the sight of Willoughby, standing there with a touch of anxiety showing on his face, but on the whole appearing as though nothing of great import had occurred. It angered her. “Quite as safe,” she added with emphasis, “as I was with Colonel Brandon yesterday.” She watched Willoughby as she spoke. “We shall not be long.”

Willoughby grimaced just as she had expected, but he said nothing. Elinor seemed not at all satisfied but reluctantly left them to themselves, as it seemed Willoughby would say nothing more while she remained with them.

Now they were alone, Marianne was not as confident in her safety. She feared she was in greater danger of falling apart rather than falling for any scheme of Willoughby’s, however.

“I suppose I have been supplanted,” Willoughby said, sulking. “Shall I congratulate you on your latest conquest?”

“Considering our last conversation, I do not imagine you have serious designs.”

“You cannot think I was toying with you! Marianne—”

“You have no right to call me that.” The very words stung, but she felt she must say them.

“You have never complained before!”

“Sir,” she said, trying to control the trembling of her voice, “I believe all claims to intimacy were forfeited the moment I learned of—and you yourself confirmed—your callous treatment of Miss Williams.”

“Marianne, you—”

“Mr. Willoughby, please!”

“Miss Marianne, I will not pretend that…Uh! This is so unnatural!” He leapt up and walked to the mantel. “You know I did not come of age yesterday,” he said in a soft voice, not devoid of feeling. “Surely you do not think I have never been in the company of women.”

“I understand that men do have…that there are things that men do that might not suit the sensibilities of many women, including their future wives. Oh!” She put her hand to her mouth. “I did not mean to say it that way, as if there are expectations, as if any hopes on my part had survived—but it hardly matters now.” She swallowed and would not look at him. “It was not so much the idea that you had met someone before me.” It had very much been the idea, however, on that fateful day at Whitwell, even before she had discovered the worst of it. She had never felt jealousy like that. Who, before that moment, had denied her anything she had truly wanted? Whom had she ever wanted before she met Willoughby?

“Then why are you so cold? I told you there was nothing,” he insisted, “that she was nothing, is nothing now. And how can you take the side of that man—you, who ignored and ridiculed him by turns along with me?”

To question her loyalty when he had been the cause of the breach between them was bad enough, but to attack the man he had injured, who had put aside the notion of a duel for her sake and who had refrained from any further displays of open hostility, was entirely too much!

“That man, as you call him, has his ward to think of. At least someone is thinking of Miss Williams.”

“Do you really believe that I should go running to London to entangle myself again with a girl who does not know what she is about? She is in every way inferior to you!”

To this Marianne did not know what to say. How could she enjoy being flattered at Miss Williams’s expense? She did not like it at all, and she thought less of Willoughby for it, if that were even possible.

Willoughby went on. “Have you even given any thought,” he hissed in what she supposed was meant to pass as a whisper, “to the reason she is the ward of Colonel Brandon?” He looked at her with a triumphant smile: If you do not condemn him for his indiscretion, it said as clearly as if he had spoken the words, then you cannot condemn me for mine.

“He is her ward for the usual reasons—tragedy. Of the father I know nothing, but the girl’s mother, a close relation of the colonel, has been dead these thirteen years. He did what was asked of him and has done it so well, despite this recent lapse of his ward, that a much nearer relationship than cousin has been assumed by some.”

Marianne expected Willoughby to be disappointed, but his mood seemed somehow lightened by her news. It made no sense to her. “Ha! Only a cousin! And for his devotion to his cousin, this dull man suddenly wins your approval? How can that be?”

“Mr. Willoughby,” she said, “if I had no right to demand an explanation from you yesterday, then you have no right to demand one from me now.” She shook with anger, sorry that by so doing she was prevented from speaking as forcefully as she wished, but hardly able to help it under such provocation. “I recall very clearly the way you attempted to justify your actions and claim innocence of any wrongdoing. I remember your expression as you declared the whole situation ‘unconscionable’ and turned away from it and from me. You refused to remain and sort the matter out with Colonel Brandon, which would have been the honourable thing to do. You could not get away from him rapidly enough.”

As she paused for breath and watched Willoughby’s eyes evade hers and flit from object to object around the room, an idea struck her, and it seemed so obvious she almost laughed. “You were afraid, were you not?” If she could have smiled then, she would have. “And not just of being found out! You were terrified that the colonel would call you out right where you stood! He did say he ought to do so, I remember! So you left before he could form the words.”

She did not smile then, but she did laugh, hollow though the sound was, for she did not think the situation funny at all. “You left Eliza because you did not want to know whether she was with child and then have to make some provision for her. You did not want to face her guardian, and rightly so. You…are a coward.”

He blanched but did not contradict her.

How could she have been so wrong about him? True, he had not been tested until now. Everything had been easy for him here. He had been at leisure his whole time in the country, with no one to please but himself, and pleasing her had seemed a natural consequence of his being the man he was, an effortless certainty.

“Did you know,” she wondered aloud, her eyes growing wide as she considered the possibility, “that he was her guardian? Is that the true reason for your dislike of Colonel Brandon?”

“I…I did not know! I swear I did not!” She had succeeded in discomposing him, but she could not determine whether a lack of composure or a lack of forthrightness caused him to stumble in his speech. “She never said,” he continued, “and I never asked. Why would I have cared?” The sound of his voice tapered almost to a choked whisper.

“Marianne,” Elinor called just before entering the room. “Forgive me for interrupting, but—”

“I was just leaving, Miss Dashwood,” Willoughby said, standing. He bowed. “Please give my regards to Mrs. Dashwood and Miss Margaret.” His manner at parting seemed but a shadow of what the ladies had known it to be in happier times. Marianne felt sorry for him. There seemed to be so little left of those qualities that had appealed to her in the beginning. His charm was forced, and his customary warmth was eclipsed by his obvious desire to be away. His face appeared less handsome when marred by unreasonable discontent, or by some emotion just short of shame. For he still did not seem ashamed of what he had done, merely embarrassed and angry at having been caught.

“Are you well, Marianne?” Elinor asked when Willoughby was out of sight and hearing.

“No, but I am no worse off than I was before I saw him.”

“How I wish you had never had to endure this! There is much I would say, but I am afraid of giving you pain.”

“You can do no worse than what Willoughby himself has done, and your motives and manner must be superior to his. If you mean to remind me of your advice to proceed carefully, I assure you I feel my lack of attention to the lesson as strongly as you could desire. And yet I do not see how I could have been other than what I was!”

“No, no! Now is not the time for recrimination! All the circumspection in the world would not have brought you knowledge of that which he had determined to conceal! There would now be fewer explanations expected from our friends, perhaps, but I daresay your heartbreak would still have been as acute.”

Marianne closed her eyes, thankful to be understood and not admonished at such a moment.

Elinor clasped her hands. “You must eat,” she insisted.

“I have no appetite.”

“Just a little, then.” Her sister left the room and came back with her hands full. “Here,” she said, setting down the tray and handing Marianne something from it immediately. “As you eat, I shall read you the note Colonel Brandon left for Mama this morning. She showed it to me earlier.” Elinor glanced at her. “But perhaps you would like to read it yourself.”

The only thing that stopped Marianne from reaching for the letter was the plate Elinor had thrust into her hands. She placed it in her lap. “I told you, Elinor, my appetite is nonexistent.”

“One bite. I will not be satisfied with less.”

“One!” Marianne took her one bite, which turned into two, and then into more.

“It is as I thought, Elinor said, smiling. “Your appetite was only waiting to be coaxed out of hiding.”

“I think I will read the letter after all.”

Elinor smiled even more broadly.

---

Next

The Excursion to Whitwell, Part 3

The colonel did not stop at the manor house but proceeded directly to the cottage. As soon as the carriage drew to a halt, Marianne moved to jump down.

“My dear Miss Marianne,” implored the colonel as he hurriedly caught and steadied her, “please take care! We would not want you to injure your ankle again.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Marianne heard Elinor say. “You are very kind.”

“Yes,” agreed Marianne, distracted by the task before her. All her attention had been for the front door and the matter of getting through it as quickly as possible. She turned to the man at her side, who, she noticed then, had not quite let her go. She had had the fleeting awareness of being held, and she had welcomed it, or at least had welcomed the freedom to think of things other than her physical safety, for her mind was wrapped up almost entirely in the business with Willoughby. Colonel Brandon at last released her and offered his arm; this she took, trusting him to deliver her rapidly to her mother’s side just as she had trusted him to deliver her to Barton Cottage.

Elinor led the way into the parlour, said something about refreshments, and turned to go.

Marianne stopped her. “I shall go to Mama, Elinor.”

“No,” her sister said. “You must rest. Let me see if she is well enough to come down.” Elinor hurried out.

“Her cold!” Marianne exclaimed, having recalled why it was her mother had not accompanied them. “Poor, dear Mama!” she fretted.

“Miss Marianne, please sit a moment. Your sister will not be long. Miss Marianne,” the colonel repeated.

“I cannot sit. I cannot be still.”

His look was one of understanding. “You want to be doing something.”

“Yes! Do you not feel that way?”

“Of course. I want to be on the road to London.”

“Oh, oh!” cried Marianne. “And I am delaying you from your duty! I am sorry. I did not even think of it.” She continued to pace. “Do not let me keep you further.”

“I cannot leave you in such distress.”

“Why ever not? I am safe at home now, and I am nothing to you, certainly compared to your ward.”

Rather than seeing relief on his countenance and hearing his rushed goodbyes, Marianne watched Colonel Brandon’s face redden. She stood still and stared at him in confusion.

“If you seek to remind me of my duty, there is no need.” His voice sounded stiff, even angry. “I assure you, I feel it, and my failure to discharge it, acutely.”

“I would not dare,” Marianne mumbled, wondering at this sudden change.

The colonel was not done. “But to say you are nothing to me, to think that I could abandon you at a time like this! How…” He stopped speaking and began to walk back and forth in front of the sofa.

She marvelled at his show of temper, marvelled at his being so greatly offended, until tiredness threatened to overtake her. Then she stopped trying to wrestle with what she could not comprehend and instead allowed her mind to fix on what it would. It fixed on the scene before her.

Such a small space; such contained, precise movement; nothing careless or carefree in his bearing, Marianne observed. The comparison to Willoughby followed, of course. It could hardly be helped. Willoughby, who was so often with them, who moved fluidly and familiarly through their public rooms, would never look upon her with such a sober expression. Willoughby, whose handsome face and charming manners brightened up any place where he was, would be at pains to appear as though the world were falling down about him, even if it were. This man, however, seemed to have darkened the space surrounding him with his solemn, restless energy. ‘Yet this,’ Marianne thought, her eyes tracking the colonel’s path, ‘is not a man who would seduce a young girl and leave her.’ And Willoughby, who had delivered heartbreak and worse to one who had had the misfortune to entrust herself to him, would probably never come here again. “Willoughby!” Her mouth formed the name in silence, and she felt empty.

Sadness settled over her. She sank down and sat at last, waiting for tears that did not fall. Perhaps her eyes were too weary to create any more of them. Her head ached, but the pain was a pittance compared to everything else.

She was jarred from her thoughts by the colonel’s tug on her fingers. “Miss Marianne?” He tapped the back of her hand in a light, rhythmic manner. “I believe you were about to faint.”

“No, I…” And then she realised she had leant over and rested her head on the cushion at an odd angle. A little farther and she might have slipped to the floor.

“Miss Marianne,” she heard the colonel whisper. “Marianne, please rally. Please,” he begged, “do not let him get the better of you, too.” She felt a gentle hand press against her cheek and shift her head until she sat upright again, and then the pillows were moved to support her. She blinked.

“Promise me you will not fall while I fetch you a glass of wine.”

“What?” Marianne raised a hand to her brow and thought about each word she had heard until they all made sense to her. “Yes, thank you,” she said, striving to stay steady while her head spun.

The colonel returned to her side, and she drank under his watchful eye. When he appeared satisfied, he relieved her of the glass. Unfortunately, the sounds that spilled into the room gave him such a start that he nearly splattered the remaining liquid over them both.

“Show me to Miss Marianne.” Mrs. Jennings’s voice rang through the hall. “I must see how she does.”

“Why did she not come to the Park first? It would have been faster.” Sir John inquired. “Besides, I had thought her remarkably improved when Brandon handed her into the carriage...”

Then they heard Elinor and Mrs. Dashwood in the hall, greeting their unexpected guests.

“No,” Marianne whispered. “No!”

“I will go,” the colonel said before Marianne’s incredulity and indignation found further expression. “I will send your mother and sister to you as soon as I can extract them.” He dashed from the room, and she was left alone to think. And think she did, first and foremost about that which could give her no pleasure.

It was not in her nature to withdraw her love, but Willoughby did not deserve it or even value it, if his behaviour was any indication. Had she been the one at fault—had there been some defect in her, something wanting in her character, that had pushed him away—oh, how she would mourn him! She would seek him out at once to make her apologies, to beg his forgiveness! Even so, she mourned him. She longed for and despised and missed and regretted him, and her great disappointment warred with the vestiges of her affection and held on stubbornly to her heart.

It was also not in her nature to reconsider her first impressions, but she found herself doing just that, not only with Willoughby but also with Colonel Brandon. Considering the colonel’s inextricable involvement in the dreadful business, she was surprised at how well she could bear his presence. She had never paid him any mind before today and she wondered how he had suddenly become so useful to her, a usefulness approaching indispensability with his increasing attention to her comfort. Comfort was what she had requested of Willoughby, and he had been worse than useless, she was both horrified and ashamed to admit, having only heaped upon her more anxiety and pain. Of the two men, she had the colonel to thank for any relief she felt at present, any palliation of her miserable state.

Elinor came in, followed by her mother. “Marianne,” said the latter, “my dear child, you do not look well at all. Have you too become ill?”

“We would have come sooner,” Elinor explained, “but I had to see Mama guarded against a chill, and I sent Margaret out to pick flowers for her room. Then—” She lowered her voice. “Well, I suppose you heard what happened then.”

“I could hardly avoid hearing it. But you are here now.”

“What is it you must tell me?” Mrs. Dashwood sat next to her daughter. “Elinor said you have had quite a shock.”

Marianne was ready to reveal everything, to condemn Willoughby as the worst of men, but the compassion in her mother’s eyes and the concern in her sister’s undid her. She cried out and flung herself into her mother’s embrace.

The colonel joined them. “They are gone!” he informed them. “They are gone. But did I hear—Miss Marianne!” He rushed towards her and stopped just short of reaching her.

“Colonel,” Marianne said, her voice hoarse, “tell them.”

“Are you certain?” he asked after a moment’s pause.

“I cannot do it myself.” She turned her head back towards her mother and cried out again, the sound muffled by the matron’s shoulder.

“All of it?”

“Anything! Everything. Whatever you wish.”

Marianne heard the colonel sigh, heard him pace, heard him cease pacing, heard him sit.

“I suppose the truth cannot be concealed in any case,” he said at last, and Marianne felt yet another pang. She had asked—no, commanded—him to tell his private woes to her family, to make public the ruin of his ward! She recalled how he had deliberated, silently and intensely, before handing her Eliza’s letter.

“Have I no heart at all?” she cried. He owed her nothing, and yet he had shown over and over to-day that he was ready and willing to give her anything she required; he had deferred to her at every turn, regardless of what it had cost him.

“It was wrong of me,” she said in a voice dulled by the sting of her shame, “to ask it of you. You need not reveal anything.”

To her shock, she felt his brief, firm touch on her hand—she knew his touch by now—and she drew strength from it. To her further surprise, though perhaps she should not have been surprised at all, he spoke not to her but to her mother and sister.

“This afternoon,” he began, “while we were sailing at Whitwell, Sir John handed me a letter.”

To hear the story recounted was difficult, but Marianne faced this penance for her regrettable request with determination, if not with eagerness. She winced as the colonel mentioned certain details in the letter that identified the man responsible for his ward’s condition; each one felt like a new injury at the site of an old wound. She shuddered when she recalled how she had felt upon first hearing the news, and then she shuddered when she imagined what might have occurred had the news never been made known to her. Had the colonel seen the letter at breakfast, would there have been a terrible scene there at the table? Or would he, with the means to depart at once, have ridden off without taking the time to read the letter again more carefully and thereby discover that the culprit was in their midst?

The culprit. Why had Willoughby done it?

Why had Marianne not seen what he was—that his ease with her must be a practiced ease with women in general? Oh, she knew he had not sought Elinor’s company as he had sought hers; she did not doubt that he cared particularly for her, in his way, but his way could no longer be trusted.

The colonel mentioned Eliza’s age in the retelling. Marianne stared. “Not yet seventeen! To be a mother, and so alone! I cannot imagine it!”

“She was too young to leave in the care of her friends. I should not have let her go to Bath.”

“Colonel,” Mrs. Dashwood interposed, “I would not hesitate to allow my daughters to travel with friends I trusted. You could not have known Miss Williams would receive so little supervision. You certainly could not have known Willoughby—Mr. Willoughby—would seek her out for such a purpose and succeed.”

“Colonel Brandon,” Marianne said, “Mama is right. You did nothing wrong. I know you feel it; I can see that you feel it, but this was not your doing.” She could tell he wanted to interrupt her and was glad he did not. “But you must go to her. You must prepare for your journey now. I have kept you too long.”

“I ought to go. There is no more to tell, or at least there will not be more until I have seen her and spoken to her myself.” He stood. “But are you certain, Miss Marianne, that you are well enough—”

“Here in this room, I am with those who love me best of all. I could wish to be nowhere else.”

The look in his eyes was striking. It captivated her. Marianne could not make out its full meaning, but she knew it signified a sort of friendship at the very least. They were forever connected through this sad affair, and she acknowledged that with a look of her own which she hoped conveyed both her sympathy and her appreciation of all he had done for her.

* * *

“What a kind man,” Mrs. Dashwood observed when the colonel had gone.

“He is kind,” Marianne agreed. “I never saw it before.”

“I tried to tell you,” Elinor reminded her, “that he is a man worth knowing.”

“Yes, I remember. You tried to tell us…” Marianne’s voice quieted as she recalled the day Elinor had defended Colonel Brandon. It was Willoughby, of course, who had begun that conversation by disparaging the man.

She was feeling generous towards the colonel, and at that moment she wished more for him than a lonely trip to town with nothing at the end of it but a guardian’s dreary responsibilities. “What a pity,” she said, not without effort, “that he is beyond the age for love and romance. Romance has done me no favours, I know,”—she was amazed at herself for having said those words without faltering—“but he, surely, would have made an attentive, caring husband to somebody. What a shame he has never married.”

Elinor appeared almost amused. “I am surprised to hear you say that, Marianne.”

“Why should I not say it, if it is what I think? Ah, Elinor,” she said, looking about the room. She tried not to fix on any object that reminded her of Willoughby’s frequent presence there, but the memories assaulted her at every turn. “Perhaps I should not have said it after all. For what good is marriage? How has it served our family? Mama is a widow; Willoughby is a rake and unfit for consideration; John is shackled to a harridan. And Edward—where is he? I will not say he is another Willoughby, but why does he avoid us? No, Elinor,” she continued, stopping her sister from interrupting. “You shall not defend even Edward. Margaret alone is fortunate among us, being too young for suitor or husband.”

“I trust, my dear,” said Mrs. Dashwood, “that you will not always hold that opinion.”

“Mama, I am done with men and marriage.”

“You are still young.”

“Older now than I was this morning, Mama.”

Margaret burst into the room, carrying a bouquet of wildflowers almost entirely of yellow. “I thought I saw the colonel drive away. What was he doing here?”

Margaret favoured the colour yellow more than her mother did, Marianne thought, frowning. She ignored Margaret’s question. She was so tired now.

Margaret’s loose hold on the stems allowed the blooms to droop, but she did not seem to notice. “What of Whitwell, Marianne? You must tell me all about it! Elinor would not say anything.” She twisted the stems. A few cuttings fell to the floor. “I wish I had gone, too. Sir John said it is a marvellous estate. Was he wrong?”

“No,” Marianne answered. “No, he was not wrong. It is a beautiful place.”

“Then why do you look so sad? And where is Willoughby? He did not come back to dine with us?”

Marianne said nothing but released a shuddering sigh.

“Margaret,” Mrs. Dashwood said, tightening her hold on Marianne, “after your sisters have had a chance to rest, I am sure they will tell you all about their journey. You were such a good girl to keep me company and forego the pleasure of the outing.”

Marianne thought it just as well that Margaret had remained at home. It was a moment before she realised her mother was speaking to her now and not her sister.

“Yes, Mama?”

“I said go upstairs, Marianne, and rest. I am certain you will be asleep within the hour.”

“I am very tired.”

“Margaret, see your sister to her room, please. I shall stay here awhile. It is pleasant to be away from my room. Sit with me, Elinor, if you are not too tired yourself.”

“Certainly, Mama.” Elinor gathered the dropped flowers and handed them to Margaret before sitting down again.

The door was not yet shut on them when Marianne heard her mother say something of the colonel’s interest, to which Elinor replied; and then, as she and Margaret proceeded to the stairs, the only other word she could discern was her mother’s anguished cry of that once-beloved name: “Willoughby!”

Despite Mrs. Dashwood’s earlier words, Margaret tried her best to prod Marianne into discussing the day’s outing. Marianne was simply too weary to answer her sister’s many and varied questions, and whenever she tried to tell her so, the pressure of tears closed her throat. At last she gave Margaret a look so expressive that the latter ceased her inquiries and wished Marianne a good rest.

* * *

Marianne did not sleep as her mother had predicted, but stared at the ceiling of her room, her throat raw and her body aching with exhaustion. She did not come down to dinner. To take nourishment was not of any importance or interest to her, and when Elinor came up with a tray to coax her to eat something, she cooperated but little.

At times she lay as still as stone, fancying her nightgown a shroud and wishing herself done with this world. Far more often, she turned her head this way and that, uttering sighs and moans, or held it steady as tears coursed down her cheeks and over her ears and into her hair. At these times she savoured every physical sensation and every painful emotion that told her she was still very much alive; she knew that she wanted to live, even if she would never be happy again.

Had there been only the loss of Willoughby to occupy her thoughts, she would have been without the means or desire of staunching the flow of her grief. However, the alteration in Willoughby himself repulsed her as much as his former manner had attracted her, and her sense of having seen his true character prevented her desiring the false one.

Having dwelt on her own despair and even having shed a sympathetic tear for the plight of Miss Williams, her thoughts drifted to the two men, to the differences in their words and behaviour. She thought of the tone of voice of one as he had spoken to her in anger and of the expression of the other as he had bidden her farewell with great reluctance.

Suddenly she sat up. A wave of dizziness made her resolve at once to lie down again, but her heart raced at her sudden burst of understanding. At last she knew—with astonishing certainty she knew—what that parting look of Colonel Brandon’s had signified.

She was so sure because she realised she had been in expectation every day of just such a look from Willoughby, and had Willoughby given her that look, she would have believed him on the verge of offering for her and would have flown into his arms before he had finished uttering the words.

But the colonel could not be thinking of her in that way. He was…. She was…. No, he simply could not.

Could he?

She groaned. How had the world gone mad in a single day?

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Next

The Excursion to Whitwell, Part 2

Marianne could hear her own breathing and Willoughby’s—no, Willoughby was silent. She looked about her. The colonel’s, then, confounded man! But she had no time or thought to spare for him.

How, after this revelation, could she trust that Willoughby’s affection for her would last? With all her being she felt it would, but perhaps this other girl had felt the same. Would he, heaven forbid, discard and discount her, too? Impossible! Would he, nine months from now in some other country, confess with equal embarrassment to some other young lady that Miss Marianne Dashwood was nothing to him? Unthinkable!

Marianne could not imagine loving someone other than Willoughby. If ever she were to believe in second attachments, this would be a most convenient time.

“I do not understand you,” she said at last, for she, rarely at a loss for words, did not know what else to say. And Colonel Brandon still hovered. Why was he always near? She saw that Willoughby had gripped the railing and was looking out over the water. She turned to flee.

The movement of the boat slowed her pace after only a few steps. She stopped and felt her anger and amazement deepen. She had never thought she would desire to leave Willoughby’s side. Elinor! Elinor’s company would be such a comfort! Squinting and shading her eyes from the afternoon sun, she searched for her sister’s form in the distant cluster—they all appeared to be suffering under some monologue of Sir John’s—but she could not help glancing over her shoulder at the place where Willoughby stood.

With her feelings so affronted, she turned away from the sight of him almost immediately but not before noticing that the colonel had no difficulty at all in fixing his attention on Willoughby. Marianne imagined it was not a kindly look the colonel gave him, for when he spoke, it was not a kindly voice that broke the silence:

“You were in Bath nine months ago?”

“You obviously heard me say that I was, but what can that be to you?”

The colonel took a step away from her and towards Willoughby. “I have here,” he said, waving the sheet of paper, “the mention of a ‘W,’ who was intimately acquainted with someone I know. Much more intimately acquainted than was proper.”

“And what has that to do with me? I am hardly the only ‘W’ who was in Bath at the time.”

“I imagine not, but neither can I imagine that Eliza expected to wed and be brought to her new home, Combe Magna, by anyone other than you.”

“What?”

Marianne’s simultaneous cry came out as a squeak, and she looked helplessly at Willoughby. His exclamation had been powerful, but he looked anything but strong now—he seemed greatly agitated. And then the most terrible chant pounded in her head: Nine months ago, I might have prevented this. Nine months, nine months, nine months. It was shocking that the colonel had let those telling words slip from his mouth. She felt like a fool for having missed their significance. She could scarcely breathe. She tried her best to keep her wits, for the colonel was speaking again.

“She blotted the words,” the colonel was saying, “almost beyond recognition, but when I read the letter once more, I just barely made it out.”

“How could she think....I never said I would marry her!”

Marianne’s breath came in quick puffs as she acknowledged that this person—Eliza, had Colonel Brandon said?—must be the lady who meant nothing to Willoughby.

“No,” the colonel bit out, and for a moment Marianne could imagine his fierceness on the battlefield. “Men often do not precisely say such things, merely enough to let the woman think that is what she has heard.”

“I cannot be held culpable for that!”

“Not for that, perhaps, but for something much more serious than a few careless words, the consequences of which are the reason she wrote to me.”

Willoughby blustered and tried to laugh off the colonel’s accusations, declaring them ridiculous, but his voice sounded almost shrill in its panic. The colonel’s aspect must have been dreadful just then.

“Miss Marianne?”

Marianne started at the sound of her own name coming from the colonel’s mouth, and coming forth with such gentleness.

He had turned his head, though not enough to face her. “I know you are still behind me.” He waited a few seconds for her to confirm it.

She continued to stare at the colonel and beyond him to Willoughby. The latter looked at her with wide eyes, as if he had forgot her presence entirely until that moment.

“Please, Miss Marianne,” continued the colonel, “you must allow that the present topic of conversation is not fit for your ears. I may have lost my composure but not my sense. I apologise for what I have exposed you to thus far, but I beg you now to grant us privacy to conclude our conversation.” He turned back to Willoughby, who appeared frozen in fear. “Besides, should I lose what little remains of my control and decide to toss this bounder overboard, I should hate to see your lovely striped muslin dampened by the splash.”

“You would not hurt him!”

“I ought to call him out this instant.”

“Marianne, come,” Willoughby insisted, walking gingerly around his accuser and giving him a wide berth. “Let us leave the colonel to his mad ravings.” He reached for her hand. “See!” he pointed out. “We shall miss the beauty of our surroundings by wasting our time here. Let us join our friends.”

The shock of his touch caused Marianne to shudder. She thrust her hand behind her back and out of his reach. “Willoughby.” She shook her head and moved aside. Her tears began to blur her view of him. “Can you not comfort me? I would rather believe anything than what I am hearing!” She sounded miserable and sorry and felt immeasurably worse. “Will you not tell me this is all a horrible dream, that my ears have deceived me? Until then, I cannot take your hand. As much as I wish to, I cannot!”

“Marianne!”

“Are you,” she asked, sobbing now, “the same gentleman I have known these many weeks, or are you the libertine the colonel declares you to be? Which is it?”

“I am as ever I was, Marianne.”

“But what is it that you are? Who are you?”

“Why must I explain myself to you,” Willoughby demanded to know, drawing up in anger, “or to him?” He seemed very unlike the gentleman she knew. “This is unconscionable!”

“On that we agree,” said the colonel.

Willoughby turned and walked off before the colonel could say another word.

“If he cared for her then,” Marianne said through her tears as she watched him go, “how can he…”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“care for me now? Impossible!”

“It is possible,” the colonel said hesitantly, “to love more than once.”

She took immediate offence at his words. “Or perhaps,” she said in a thickening voice, “it was not love at all.”

“That, too, is possible.”

“You are just rife with possibilities, Colonel,” she said, fairly laughing through her tears, though there was acrimony, not amusement, in the sound.

“Of one thing I am certain: Eliza loved him, though I wish she had not.”

“And I!” She pressed her hand to her mouth and wept and wept. She wished Willoughby had never met Eliza, or that Eliza had never loved him, or that she herself had never loved him. “Why?”

“Who knows why we love?” the colonel asked, his gaze unwavering, the man himself never once shying away from her grief.

The sky was a brilliant blue, and the water…oh, but now the picture was spoilt. Sky and water alike might as well have been grey. She ought to have been enjoying this adventure with Willoughby. Yet here she was, talking of love with the colonel, of all people! Marianne could not control her sudden impulse to laugh her humourless laugh again, despite the tears flowing down her cheeks. The result, somewhere between a ragged sigh and hysteria, was not loud enough to draw attention from their friends; she supposed it, like Willoughby’s earlier cry, could not penetrate the garrulous banter of some of their party. Besides, her throat felt so constricted that no noise came forth from it now with much power.

The colonel smiled; it was a sad, sober gesture. “I must apologise again, Miss Marianne. I had no right to subject you to that scene.”

“It was awful!”

“I know. And I took an unholy pleasure, I am now realising, in exposing Mr. Willoughby’s misdeeds in your hearing. I suppose my anger on Eliza’s behalf spurred me on, as well as my wish that no other young woman be vulnerable to that man, but it was beneath me, and I am sorry for the suffering my selfishness brought upon you.”

She had suffered and did suffer still, but as the colonel continued to look at her, the seriousness of his accusations against Willoughby struck her with fresh force and brought to mind one who, she imagined, had suffered even more. “Has he truly injured your…your…friend so grievously that she is…” How could she speak plainly to this man about so delicate a topic? She ought not to have alluded to it at all! This girl that had written to him—who was she to him? Did the colonel have his own little love-child sequestered away somewhere? My word! She was not ready to hear of any more bad behaviour on the part of men of her acquaintance!

He seemed to understand her; he certainly did not appear offended by her inquiry. “She is my ward,” he said, “my cousin’s orphaned daughter. And yes.”

Marianne watched his eyes when he did not say more. He appeared on the point of speaking several times. She did not mind his silence, for his eyes fascinated her with their eloquence. She wondered that she had never seen anything in them before but dullness. They were alight now with intelligence and pain.

At last, with his mouth closed in a grim line, he held out the letter to her, and she took it without thinking.

She felt more anger at him at that moment when the paper changed hands than she had during the whole of the episode. This accursed letter! She was furious with Sir John, and with Eliza, and with every person responsible for conveying the post from London to Dorsetshire and from Dorsetshire to Devonshire. As her hand closed around the missive, she realised it was unfair of her. Colonel Brandon had done nothing but read a letter, and his world had been turned upside down. She still could not reconcile that this same piece of correspondence had disordered her world as well, but none of it was the colonel’s fault, unless he could be blamed for having trusted his ward’s companions to keep careful watch over her. ‘Oh, Lord!’ she thought, looking at the haphazard script, hardly the work of the deliberate colonel. ‘Willoughby said the colonel wrote this letter himself, and I agreed with him! I had forgot!’

“I have asked too much,” Brandon said. “I have imposed upon you enough as it is. I do not know how you can ever forgive me. I cannot expect you to read that.”

He must have noted her brief burst of fury. “No,” she began, but then she saw Elinor approaching, and she tucked the letter away. “It may be too much,” she agreed. “It is all too much! But I—”

“Marianne,” Elinor cried before Marianne could continue, “whatever is the matter? Willoughby seems in the blackest of moods. I have never seen him so out of sorts, so reserved! He said you were distressed.”

“He spoke nothing but the truth, and he is the—”

“Miss Marianne,” the colonel interrupted, “will you not go with Miss Dashwood? Perhaps the motion of the boat has been too much for you.”

“Yes, come sit here. You do look pale, dear. Have you been crying, too?” Elinor led her to a seat and sat beside her. “I thought you seemed very well when we boarded. I had thought I would be the one to feel ill.”

“I do not know when I have ever felt so wretched,” cried Marianne, melting under the solicitous care of her sister.

“Is there any way I can be of assistance?” asked Colonel Brandon.

“I cannot think of anything at present, Colonel, but thank you for your concern,” Elinor answered. “I shall stay with her.”

Marianne looked into her sister’s worried face. “Willoughby,” she said, choking on his name, “is not what he seems, Elinor. I cannot tell you now what he has done, but I shall when we return to the cottage.”

Elinor looked even more alarmed at this news but did not press her for details, for which Marianne was grateful.

Colonel Brandon did not leave them, and for once Marianne found she did not mind that he remained near her.

Marianne remembered the letter and retrieved it, staying her sister’s clear curiosity with a gesture. The colonel, when not fixing his gaze upon her, glared in Willoughby’s direction. Such a mixture of fierceness and gallantry he was, but Marianne had little leisure to contemplate this with the purported evidence of Willoughby’s offences in her very own hands.

She read quickly, and she felt wonder and sorrow and disgust. Eliza had been approached by ‘W,’ had been captivated, had succumbed to his advances though she had known better. There was Combe M—, scratched through and blotted but still visible, certainly to one who had had similar expectations—oh! the loss!—and there was the confession: Eliza was with child and very near her lying-in. She had gone to London when her condition could no longer be concealed. ‘W’ had left her with no address; rather, she could not locate him in Bath or in London, and the letter she had dared to send to him in the country she was certain had been misdirected, for she had received no reply. He had provided her no assistance. He had given her no hope. Yet behind Eliza’s sadness, Marianne could discern, was the hope that she would eventually be reunited with him, even as she refused to reveal his full name to her guardian.

Marianne, too, had hoped some word, some phrase might convert every horror she had experienced in the last half hour to nothing more than a night terror brazen enough to show itself in daylight, but these vain wishes had been abandoned almost as quickly as they had been formed. Moreover, she could not escape the truth that her own troubles, however grievous, were as nothing compared to this. “The poor girl!” she cried out. “She was wrong, and she knows it. But he used her ill!”

“Marianne? What poor girl?”

“How could he have done it? And what price will he pay? She shall have disgrace for her pains, and he merely a little distress, from which he will quickly recover.” She scowled and looked at Willoughby but only for a moment.

“Please, Marianne, I beg you do not distress yourself any further—”

“That is beyond my control, Elinor. I am hardly the author of my own distress.” She folded the letter and handed it to Colonel Brandon. “Take it. I cannot bear to look at it any longer. You will need the direction. I am glad you will go to her, for I am certain he will not.” She recalled something she had read. “All this time you knew nothing of her whereabouts?”

“I tried to find her for months. I had no idea where she was.”

“Sir,” Elinor said to Colonel Brandon with no little agitation, “what is in that letter? Have you also done something to upset my sister?”

“Elinor, the colonel is innocent in this.”

“Not innocent,” the colonel returned.

“You are not to blame!” Marianne insisted. “Another is culpable, though he will not own it.”

“I should have spared you.”

“And allowed me to continue in my ignorance? And to become another Eliza, were it possible to forget myself so completely?” She turned back to her sister. “Oh, Elinor!”

For a time she was lost to all around her as her tears returned in full force.

* * *

At last the others noticed and gathered round. Marianne did not look up. She was confident that her sister would shield her—dear, dependable Elinor!

“What is the matter, Miss Marianne?” she heard Mrs. Jennings inquire.

“Please, my dear madam,” said Lady Middleton, “do not crowd her. She is clearly upset.”

“I can see that, Mary! An’t I been a mother to you and to Charlotte these many years? I know when a girl needs mothering, and since Mrs. Dashwood is not at hand, I must do the job. Now, now, Miss Marianne, you look terribly unwell. We must get back, Sir John!”

“What was that, ma’am?” Sir John called out.

Marianne followed little more of the noisy conversation, clinging instead to Elinor and murmuring her miseries and regrets. Colonel Brandon stood and spoke and managed to deflect the worst of the meddlesome inquiries and offers of help. What help could they give her? Her heart was not merely rent in two but splintered into a million pieces, and there was nothing they could do to restore it short of proving Eliza to be a liar. But Willoughby’s own words and countenance had condemned him. There was nothing anybody could do.

Somehow they reached the shore; somehow they disembarked and returned to the carriages, this time with the sisters sat together. Marianne did not look to see where Willoughby was. She wished she could have put him entirely out of her head, but that was impossible. She dabbed her eyes with her soggy handkerchief and stared into the colonel’s concerned ones. How odd!—how she and Willoughby would have laughed to think of her sharing a carriage with Colonel Brandon after the morning’s arrangements! Yet how little she was inclined towards mirth at this moment! The colonel’s presence was very welcome and infinitely preferable to that of Willoughby.

The scenery that had enraptured Marianne on the way to Whitwell passed by in a blur, unnoticed by her. Her mind was full of another subject.

At last she spoke to the colonel. “He must be made to do right by her.”

“I intend,” he said, nodding in agreement, “to use whatever means are in my power to ensure it.”

“But you will not call him out? Say you will not!”

“Call him out?” Elinor repeated, looking shocked.

The colonel’s eyes darted to Elinor and back to Marianne. “I cannot say that, Miss Marianne. I consider our meeting inevitable.”

“You must not! You must not take such a risk! Miss Williams depends upon you!”

“Which is why I must defend her honour.” He then asked, “Do you believe I would lose such a contest?”

“He is considered to be a very good shot.”

“And I am not?”

“Marianne!” Elinor called out. “You are pale again! Please, let us leave this dreadful subject, Colonel.”

“You must not, Colonel!” Marianne whispered, ignoring Elinor’s concern. This was too important. “Please promise me! Please! For Miss Williams’s sake and…and….”

For Willoughby’s sake as well? The question was in his look, although Marianne herself was not at all certain she would have included Willoughby in her plea. But before she could go on, the colonel said, “You feel strongly about this. The only promise I will make is to consider what else might be done and not to act rashly. For Miss Williams’s sake, as you say.” He looked very sad. “And for your own.”

“Thank you,” Marianne replied.

Elinor asked no more questions save with her eyes; Elinor would soon know all, as soon as they crossed the threshold of Barton Cottage if Marianne had her way. But Mama! What would she think? How her dear heart would grieve when forced to see Willoughby in such a light! Even Margaret must be made aware of Willoughby’s unworthiness, if not the proof of it.

Marianne felt her eyes grow moist again. She closed them and wished the carriage back to Barton and herself out of it and in the company of her family, where she would find solace for the misery inflicted upon her. And then, since her wishes had no effect on the speed of the horses, she fixed her gaze upon the colonel’s steady hands as he gripped the reins.

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Next

The Excursion to Whitwell

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(2011)
Sense and Sensibility
This story begins after Chapter 12 of the novel with the following change: Colonel Brandon does not receive a certain letter while breakfasting at Barton Park, and the outing to Whitwell proceeds as planned.
*WIP*

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Part One

Their excursion to Whitwell turned out to be very like what Marianne had expected, yet different in ways she never would have anticipated, not in her wildest imaginings. She had hoped to be entertained, excited, and even enthralled, which she could not have failed to be in the presence of a certain gentleman of her acquaintance; and while the actual event rendered her all of those things, it also effected a shocking change in her circle of friends, in her view of the world, and, most notably, in her heart.

By ten o'clock the whole party were assembled at the park, where they were to breakfast. The morning was certainly favourable—the previous night’s rain was as nothing—for the clouds were dispersing across the sky and the sun forcing its way through them with greater and greater frequency. All were in high spirits and good humour, eager to be happy, and determined to submit to any inconvenience or hardship rather than be otherwise.

The breakfasters were just beginning to rise from the table when the letters were brought in. Sir John, anxious to be gone, gathered them up. He glanced at the first one and smiled in that silly way of his. “Another day, my dear,” he said to his wife, “I should be very glad to read of Mr. Polk’s exploits in town, but I shall defer that particular enjoyment until tomorrow.” He did not wait for any acknowledgement from Lady Middleton but left the room immediately to put the letters away, perusing them as he went.

“Mr. Polk!” exclaimed Mrs. Jennings. “That man thinks entirely too well of himself.” She relayed what she could recall from that gentleman’s previous letter to Sir John, and she was not half done with her account by the time her son-in-law returned. Marianne did her best to ignore the woman’s inane chatter, but the volume of Mrs. Jennings’s voice made it a difficult undertaking.

“Let us be off!” was the host’s cry as he reached the door of Barton Park, and not a moment too soon! As all were ready, they quickly filled the carriages. They made a merry party. There were those who were merry by nature and those whose company rendered them so, and the prospect of the outing was enough to animate even the less lively members of the group.

Marianne sat down and Willoughby sat beside her. She looked back to see Elinor in a carriage with Colonel Brandon, and she pitied her. “Whatever will they talk of?”

Willoughby caught the direction of her glance and shrugged. “Your sister always finds something to say to him. We need not worry about it.”

“I do not know how she does it.”

The colonel was not mentioned again during the remainder of their ride, despite his connection to the owners of the estate they were to visit. There were views to be appreciated, observations to be made, feelings to be treasured; they had not even arrived at their destination, and yet the day already promised to be one that would linger long in Marianne’s memory.

At Whitwell’s entrance, Marianne drew Elinor to her side, thinking to provide her with better companionship in herself and Willoughby than what she had endured during the journey, and they joined the others on the tour. The grand façade, the avenue, the formal garden and the little wilderness to the east of it all pleased the eye and drew forth exclamations of delight. The rooms of the manor house were very fine, fitted up in modern style, but the visitors spent little time indoors. It was a day to be out, and here, where the ground was drier and less dirty than at Barton, they took full advantage of the chance to wander about.

Marianne and Elinor in particular, missing their childhood home, felt all the pleasure of the opportunity afforded them. Acknowledgement of the occasional resemblance to their family seat was mainly restricted to a shared glance after coming upon a familiar-looking stand of trees here, or a certain variety of flower there. Marianne could not keep an exclamation or two from escaping her lips, though she determinedly restrained herself from more, deeming the majority of the hearers unworthy or unable to appreciate what had precipitated them. Elinor had no such difficulty, she knew; a slight nod or raised brow was enough for her, and further expression of sentiment Marianne had long ago been taught not to expect from her elder sister, especially in company.

Yet there arose a moment when the loss did threaten Elinor’s composure: there was a turn in one of the walks that resembled its counterpart at Norland Park to such a degree that neither Dashwood sister could be insensible of it. It was too much even for Elinor, and though the sentiment, Marianne doubted not as they looked at each other, was mirrored in their faces to an unequal degree as befitted the disposition of each, there was no disparity in the sincerity of feeling, which was greatly to the credit of the former and enough to satisfy the latter. Assured that her sister felt as she ought, Marianne was able to turn aside and indulge her own memories.

“You sigh.”

She looked up to see Willoughby staring down at her in attentive concern. “Yes.”

“What troubles you, Marianne?” he spoke in a low voice. Not that they were near enough to anyone else to hear him address her so; not that there would truly be any harm done if anyone heard him do so. How could there be? Nonetheless, it was sweet and accentuated the sense of intimacy and accord she always felt in his company.

“This reminds me—”

“Ah. Of course.”

Of course she did not need to explain. He understood her in this, as in everything else. An allusion to the superiority of her mother’s management of the estate to that of the Mrs. Dashwood now in residence there and her spirits almost rallied. It seemed he always knew the perfect thing to say! There were times she felt his love and loyalty in every spoken phrase, and this was one of them.

Despite Marianne’s love of Norland, she wished at that moment to be exactly where she was, for she was with Willoughby—the one source of unalloyed pleasure she had found in having removed to Devonshire, and her more than sufficient compensation for having to bear the tedious company of some of the others of their set. Then Willoughby happened to look at her and happened to smile, and her adoration of him banished all traces of sorrow in an instant. Surely she would have her own home again soon, first in Somersetshire and later in Devonshire. Surely she was not being presumptuous in thinking so, despite whatever Elinor may say—and however often she may say it!—to impress upon her the wisdom of discretion and caution. Discretion? Caution? Dissemblance and cowardice, more like! In her own case, keeping company with such inferior companions would be unforgivable, for admiration had rapidly turned to love, and that love was certain to lead to matrimony before very long. It was inevitable.

* * *

They were well away from the shore when Sir John called to Colonel Brandon and handed him a piece of paper. The colonel examined it, paled, and ran off to an isolated spot to open and read what appeared to be a letter. Marianne would not have noticed had the colonel not been standing near her when Sir John had sought him out; much like his mother-in-law’s, the baronet’s voice was too loud to shut out completely.

“He is always hovering about,” she said to Willoughby, nodding towards Mr. Brandon.

“Lonely old man.”

“We do not want his company.” She huffed and turned away from the sight of him. “Reading a letter, of all things. At least his occupation with it has removed him to a more comfortable distance.”

“That is exactly what I think, Marianne.”

Marianne was not so lucky as to have escaped the colonel’s presence entirely, for he soon returned to speak with Sir John. The latter, not being content with answering his own oft-repeated questions regarding the colonel’s odd behaviour, had attempted unsuccessfully to ply satisfactory explanations from Willoughby and Marianne.

“Can we not,” Colonel Brandon begged as he approached them, “return to shore? I must get back to Barton at once. I have a pressing matter of business, and I—”

“Business!” Sir John exclaimed. “Who can think of business on a day like this?”

“Why did you delay in giving me the letter?”

“You were not the only one to set aside ‘pressing matters’ to-day. One cannot enjoy a party of pleasure otherwise.”

“I can barely believe you carried it on your person for so many hours! Had you dropped it, lost it—No! I will not dwell on that possibility.”

“It was as safe as can be, right here in my pocket,” Sir John assured him, patting the now-empty place where it had been.

“Oh, that I had seen this,” the colonel said, clutching the letter, “before we departed!”

“Eh? Then I am glad I waited as long as I did to give it to you.”

“What! What can you mean by that?”

“That lioness of a housekeeper seemed quite set against admitting us until she saw your face, never mind that I have been here a dozen times over. She might have chased us off the grounds had you not come,” he said, gesturing and chuckling, vastly amused.

Willoughby smirked and then laughed—a short, sharp sound. “There are some people,” he whispered to Marianne, “who cannot bear a party of pleasure. Brandon is one of them. He was afraid of catching cold I dare say, and invented this trick for getting out of it. I would lay fifty guineas the letter was of his own writing.”

“I have no doubt of it,” replied Marianne, noticing that the colonel indeed looked ill at that moment.

“You know, Brandon,” Sir John was saying, “how you are. Had you seen that letter when it arrived, you would have thrown us over in an instant in favour of writing to some solicitor or other, or worse, you would have fled the house and taken yourself off to town to meet with him!”

Marianne, sharing a knowing glance with Willoughby, marvelled that even Sir John had the right of it.

“Oh, yes, Colonel,” said Mrs. Jennings with a laugh. That she had been drawn to the conversation and had now joined it was no surprise; she was quick, Marianne thought, when it came to matters that were none of her concern, the vulgar woman. “Do not deny you would have chosen business over pleasure.”

“I have no wish to deny it!” Brandon replied. “I do wish, however, I dearly wish, that there had been no delay. It is late now for a ride to town. Yet I must go.”

“Then leave at first light,” said Willoughby, and Sir John agreed. “Surely that will be soon enough.”

“Soon enough!” he said as Sir John and Mrs. Jennings wandered off in high spirits, abusing the colonel for his wish to desert the party for the sake of some trifling business matter. “I have waited far too long already. Would that I had gone nine months ago! I might have prevented this.”

Marianne heard him and wondered aloud to Willoughby, “What can he mean by that? Nine months? If his business is that old, there is no occasion to rush to see to it now, is there?” She closed her eyes and savoured the feel of the breeze on her face. “Nine months ago, I was at my dear Norland, never thinking I would have to leave it so soon.” The moment her eyes rested on Willoughby again, she began to smile. “Where were you nine months ago? Can you recall?”

“In town, I imagine. No, I…” He blushed—absolutely blushed! Marianne was astonished to see it. “I was in Bath.” His mouth curved a tiny bit.

“Bath! I should love to see Bath.” Marianne touched his arm, for he seemed lost in thought. “Did you enjoy it? Did you form any interesting acquaintance?”

“No,” he said in a too-quick, too-loud voice. “No. I cannot say that I did.” His face flushed red again.

“Willoughby?”

He refused to meet her eye at first, and when he finally returned her gaze, he looked—why, he looked like a little boy expecting to be scolded! She could not account for it.

“Willoughby, what is this?” she asked him, peering into his face. “We have no reserve between us!” She laughed. “You are hardly shy. I am sure you make friends wherever you go. Any gentleman would be happy to make your acquaintance, and any lady is certain to…” “To adore you,” she whispered, but suddenly that idea was not very comforting. It did not help that Willoughby behaved as if he had some great embarrassment to conceal. “You did meet someone there, then.” She could feel her brow furrow. “A lady?” she asked with a cheerfulness that sounded hollow to her as she tried to convince herself it must be of no consequence.

“You are becoming too skilled,” he said, half-laughing himself, “at discerning my thoughts. If you continue to improve, soon I shall not have to speak at all.”

“Willoughby!” For once she could not tell whether he was jesting or speaking seriously. “Tell me!” She hoped it was a joke.

“Marianne, they were only—”

“THEY?” She saw him swallow.

“They were only”—his voice was not so steady now—“a couple of silly girls.”

“TWO?”

“ONE of them—” He coughed. “One of them was particularly fond of me I admit, but she was nothing to me, truly.” He leant towards her and whispered, “She was certainly nothing to you. You must believe that.”

She gasped. She did not like this at all.

How could there exist any thing having to do with Willoughby that she did not like?

She tried to think. This girl was nothing, and he was still her Willoughby, was he not? “How can I blame any girl for being drawn to you?” she murmured. “That seems ungenerous. As long as you were not drawn to her,” she said, turning over in her mind this prickly, unwieldy feeling of jealousy, “I shall be satisfied.”

“Good,” he said, visibly relieved.

His assurances notwithstanding, she found, after the reflection of a moment, that there was little satisfaction to be had. Either he had loved this girl or he had not—was there anything between love and not love?—and when she reviewed his behaviour, every sign pointed to an attachment. She was partial, exceedingly partial to him, but she was not blind! Despite his words to the contrary, he had blushed and stammered and all but admitted to a romance. Neither was she deaf. His tone had warmed when he had spoken of the girl’s affection for him, as if he had relished it—as if he were proud of having created it! Had the girl’s feelings been completely unrequited and unwelcome, there would have been no cause for embarrassment, no tenderness of expression. They might now laugh together at the lady’s folly if folly it had been, or if not, pity her for having been so unlucky as to have fixed her affections on someone who did not return them.

“You did not sound as though she were nothing to you. Did you care for her a little?” She despised the notion that one she loved so much might be capable of loving merely a little, but she despised even more the notion of being second in his heart. “Did you care for her at all?” she pressed. “And if you did, what happened? Why did it come to nothing, Willoughby?” He who, like herself, did nothing by halves—she was bewildered. “I had thought there had been no one else. It never occurred to me to think otherwise! I had thought that I….” She could not say it. She had believed herself to be the first, the only woman to truly attach him. She had believed a person could love—really love—only one other.

This was a sort of thing she could not fathom.

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Next

Writing Away...

Currently working on: a Sense and Sensibility story

Would like to try: a Northanger Abbey story

Wonder if I'll ever finish: continuations of "Beyond Her Wishes" and "Much Better Fitted" and a Persuasion/Emma crossover I began some time ago

Recent non-JAFF writing, finished or unfinished: a children's book about a cat, definitely unfinished

What about you?

Old and New Attachments (Expanded Version)

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(2010) Sense and Sensibility “May Is for Merriment” Mrs. Smith offers Willoughby a choice.

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“John.” Mrs. Smith nodded to Willoughby. “Sit down. I have received a letter from Mrs. Rutledge.”

Willoughby had no idea who the lady was. “I hope she is well.”

“She is tolerable. Her news, however, is scandalous.”

“I am sorry to hear it.”

“You ought to be, as it principally involves you.”

“In what way?” He could not fathom how that could be, considering that he and the lady were not even acquainted.

“What were you thinking, dallying with the daughter of a gentleman, the ward of a gentleman?”

Genuinely confused, he made no answer. He hoped that Sophia was not playing some trick. Daughter of a gentleman! Fresh from the taint of trade she was, having been foisted upon the Ellisons at the death of her father. She had gone so far as to hint of marriage when last they met. They had shared a few kisses, but no more than that. He owed her nothing and would not be drawn in by her schemes. He had found something better, after all, just when he had begun to doubt he ever would.

“Does the name Eliza Williams mean nothing to you?”

“Eliza!” He had not thought of her for an age. “A gentleman’s daughter? Miss Williams is the natural daughter of someone. I believe she never knew her father.”

“It appears her child may suffer the same fate.”

“Her child?” He had last seen her eight months ago, perhaps nine. Impossible—or just possible! The memory of holding her, touching her, brought guilt and a flush of pleasure, followed by distaste and more guilt because of the pleasure. The thought that those few frivolous assignations would forever connect him to that girl stupefied him, and he let a word or two slip from his mouth that he would not have uttered in his cousin’s company under any less dreadful a circumstance.

“I would reprimand you for your language,” Mrs. Smith said, her scowl deepening, “but we have more important matters to discuss.”

“I...” He had been too unguarded to deny everything now. “I am very sorry.”

“I need none of your apologies! That poor girl!”

“But why has Eliza said nothing before now?”

“A misguided attempt to protect you, I imagine. Fancies herself in love, I dare say, like that Dashwood girl that you paraded all over this house. My servants keep me well informed.”

Willoughby just barely heard the rest of Mrs. Smith’s speech: Eliza’s confession; Colonel Brandon’s—Brandon’s!—anger; gossiping servants; Mrs. Rutledge’s hurry to inform her friend.

He did not hear her question until she repeated it. “Well, which one will it be?”

“Which...what?”

“I said you must marry either Miss Williams or Miss Dashwood! Even the latter’s reputation is bound to suffer if she is not your choice, thanks to your imprudent behaviour. You have not compromised her as well, have you?”

“No! No.” He had contemplated it not long ago, and his subsequent uneasiness had made him realise the nature of his feelings towards Marianne. Those feelings had grown to the point where he had become convinced he should offer for her. A more loving family than the Dashwoods he could not imagine marrying into; a more adoring and adorable wife than the middle daughter he could not hope to find. He considered what Mrs. Smith had just said and began to feel a release from the anxiety that had gripped him. “You will be satisfied if I marry Marianne Dashwood?”

“I will not be satisfied unless you preserve, or restore, the respectability of one or the other of these women.”

“I will see to it this very day,” he assured her. Had he not been still reeling from the shock, he would have grinned for all the world to witness, such was his elation. When the idea of marriage had first occurred to him, he had merely hoped Mrs. Smith would not be too displeased with his choice—with the smallness of Marianne’s dowry, that is, for to Marianne herself she could have no objection. Never would he have dared to dream that he would be ordered to wed the woman of his choosing.

“Good.” Mrs. Smith sniffed. “Had you refused, you would have been dismissed from my house.”

His cousin then dismissed him from the room. In the hall he leant against the wall and exhaled. Their conversation had concluded much more favourably than he could have imagined after such a wretched beginning.

~*~

Mrs. Dashwood and her eldest and youngest daughters returned from their visit to Barton Park to be presented with news of the happiest kind. Marianne ran to them with tears of joy flowing down her face, answering their questioning looks with enthusiastic affirmatives and glancing every other moment at her betrothed.

“Oh! Oh!” Mrs. Dashwood lifted her hands to her eyes to brush away the beginnings of her own happy tears. “Dearest Marianne! Dear, dear Willoughby! I could not ask for a better son.” She hugged her daughter and kissed Willoughby’s cheek. Marianne pulled her sisters into their embrace.

Margaret looked at Elinor with wide eyes and moved to whisper in her ear. “If only Edward would come!”

Elinor’s smile faltered at her sister’s words. She was by no means certain Edward’s arrival would lead to the sort of celebration now occurring in Barton Cottage.

~*~

Not many days later, a very different sort of scene, with very different emotions, unfolded in London.

Mrs. Jennings, upon learning of Marianne’s engagement, had offered to escort her to town to assist with her wedding clothes. Elinor had accompanied them. Willoughby, too, had departed Devonshire and had been their earliest visitor in Berkeley Street.

Before long, a disturbing rumour reached the ears of the new arrivals: someone had accused Willoughby of serious misconduct. They wondered, they exclaimed, they protested, but none knew what to make of it; and as Willoughby himself did not immediately appear to clarify or contradict the report, they could do naught but continue to speculate.

The next morning, Mrs. Jennings returned from her errands with the startling intelligence that their friend’s name had been connected to some poor, ruined girl very near her delivery.

“Was it truly our Willoughby,” Elinor inquired, “who was named as the culprit?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Mrs. Jennings.

“Might the lady have meant that rake, Mr. Wickham, or some other disreputable person? Surely that was it,” said Marianne.

“No,” Mrs. Jennings insisted, “for I had it directly from Sarah, who had it from Miss Donovan. She is Mr. Donovan’s sister, you know, and so she hears much that goes on. You may trust her not to get the names confused, I dare say. It is most certainly Mr. Willoughby.”

When Willoughby called in the evening, Elinor expected him to either confirm or deny the report, but he did neither. His assurances to Marianne that all would be well, that there was only the matter of an unfortunate misunderstanding that would soon be resolved, provided no relief while his smiles appeared forced and his manner far from easy.

Marianne would not hear of the slightest possibility of guilt on his part. “How could anyone believe it of you, dear Willoughby?” and “Who would dare to tell such horrid lies?” were wondered aloud over and over by her, with only slight variations in wording and tone. All her blame was focussed upon the nameless villain who had brought this dark cloud over all of their heads.

Mrs. Jennings was the intrepid soul who introduced the subject the other two ladies had assiduously avoided out of fear or delicacy by asking Willoughby directly, “Well, is there to be a duel after all, and will you be in it?” Willoughby went pale and gave no reply. The conversation abruptly ceased. Mrs. Jennings then decided to retire early, accepting the fact that she would gain no new information from their guest.

The other three sat and looked at one another, eyes barely meeting before shying away again, until Marianne stood with such rapidity that her chair rocked and almost toppled backwards. “I shall never forgive him,” she hissed, “whoever he is!” She pressed her fists on the table and opened her mouth as if to say more, but tears overcame her, and at last she ran crying from the room. Elinor could only stare after her and marvel at how quickly—in the space of a week—her sister’s spirits had plummeted from perfect happiness to perfect misery.

Although not prone to excuse the often-vulgar behaviour of their hostess, neither could Elinor bring herself to censure Mrs. Jennings too harshly for posing the question that had occupied their minds for the majority of the day. Moreover, Willoughby’s refusal to speak convinced Elinor that Mrs. Jennings’s question had been as relevant as it had been inappropriate. She lamented the fancied necessity of such a barbarous practice, and as his future sister she felt the right to intervene if she could. “You have made Marianne miserable by your silence. Will you truly risk your life? Would you destroy her peace forever?” She had no desire to see him dead or injured. She recoiled at the idea that something might threaten his engagement to Marianne; how would her sister ever recover from the heartbreak? “If the rumours are false, declare them so. If there is some truth to them, can you not tell us that as well? We are to be family, Willoughby! Surely you can do that much.”

“No!”

He looked up, and Elinor saw the fear in his eyes. She refused to look away, however. The matter was too important.

“Very well,” he conceded. “I will tell you, Elinor, if you promise not to tell Marianne.”

“I cannot promise that.”

“Please!”

“No.”

He sighed. “I trust your judgement, but I beg you, do not burden her unnecessarily.”

“As you have done?”

“Elinor, I...” He swore. “No more delays. I have not much time.”

Elinor listened to all he had to say. When he had done, she considered he might have very little time left, indeed.

~*~

Neither Willoughby’s death nor Colonel Brandon’s was announced at breakfast. Elinor did not doubt that Mrs. Jennings would have contrived a means of availing herself of the latest gossip and took the lack of tidings from that lady as a hopeful sign. Soon afterwards, the ladies’ anxiety was relieved by the appearance in Berkeley Street of Willoughby himself, hale and happy as ever. After the first raptures were over and he had assured them no one had suffered injury, he imparted some news he had heard that morning.

“Mrs. Ferrars took ill yesterday and lies near death. She is your brother’s mother-in-law, is she not?”

“Oh, Elinor! If she should—” Marianne had wisdom enough to check herself, and she blushed and said no more.

Elinor understood what had remained unspoken. With his mother dead, Edward would be free to make his own choice. Elinor’s sense of decency, however, prevented hope from taking root, and her affection for Edward forbade her wishing any of his family ill.

Thereafter, Willoughby called each morning and took Marianne on walks or escorted her to the shops. His presence in town unharmed and in the company of a pretty young lady eventually quelled the gossip.

Elinor, while delighted for the couple, marvelled at how quickly and how thoroughly they had put the matter of the duel behind them. They behaved no differently than they had in Devonshire. No hint of soberness clouded their countenances; no increase of caution tempered their joy. They were light-hearted and gay and disregarded anything that could detract from their happiness.

For her part, Elinor was anxious for news of Edward but could do little more than wait. She considered calling on John and Fanny, assuming they would have been summoned to town, but she could not imagine that the latter would be pleased to see her or would credit her interest in Mrs. Ferrars’s welfare to anything but pure ambition. Affection was surely a foreign concept to one such as her sister-in-law.

Colonel Brandon eventually called in Berkeley Street to offer congratulations. “Miss Marianne,” said he, “I wish you all imaginable happiness. Mr. Willoughby, may you endeavour to deserve her.” Elinor gathered that his real aim was twofold: first, to dispel any notion of resentment between the gentlemen, by the gesture if not by the words themselves; second, to warn Willoughby against future missteps as the husband of a woman the colonel himself admired and possibly even loved.

Marianne, who knew nothing of his involvement in Willoughby’s recent troubles, laughingly dismissed the colonel’s coldness to her betrothed. “I pity him,” she told Elinor afterwards. “He is of an age beyond the reach of romantic sensibilities.”

~*~

One day while Willoughby and Marianne were out, Elinor and her hostess stopped in a milliner’s in Holborn after calling on one of the latter’s friends in that part of town. Mrs. Jennings’s attention had been drawn to a bonnet with bright-coloured satin trim on display in the window, and she and Elinor entered the shop just as two other ladies were completing their purchases. Elinor’s eyes met those of the gentleman accompanying them, and she gasped.

“Edward! Mr. Ferrars, what a pleasure it is to see you again.”

“Miss Dashwood! How fortunate to meet you here.” Edward appeared tired and pale, and his words held no warmth.

“Oho, Elinor! Mr. Ferrars with an F. You see, I have not forgotten.” Mrs. Jennings had whispered, but her significant looks were easily interpreted by all assembled.

As Edward neither introduced his friends nor made to leave, Elinor performed the civilities as far as she could, and soon Mrs. Jennings was animatedly conversing with the ladies. Edward continued silent and dull.

“May I ask how your family are?” Elinor ventured. “Is your mother well?”

“Not at all. She had a seizure and has been very ill since. The doctor believes the end is imminent.”

“I am very sorry. If there is anything I can do...”

“There is nothing. I am sorry.” He spoke to her but looked at the pretty girl by Mrs. Jennings’s side. The girl looked back at them. “I am sorry,” Edward repeated, though Elinor knew not why he felt any apology necessary.

“Miss Dashwood, Mr. Ferrars, you will never guess: Miss Steele and Miss Lucy are my cousins!” Mrs. Jennings recounted the details of their discovery and insisted on walking with the party before they returned to Bartlett's buildings, where the Misses Steele were staying. “We shall visit the shops to-morrow, Elinor.”

Elinor gladly would have taken Edward’s arm had he offered it, but he did not offer it. Furthermore, Miss Lucy took every opportunity to place herself between Elinor and Edward. Finally, Elinor turned to Miss Steele and talked to her with great perseverance, an effort that afforded her little pleasure.

~*~

“Girls,” said Mrs. Jennings, rushing into the room one afternoon, “you will never believe this! Old Mrs. Ferrars is dead, but that was not unexpected. Here is the surprise: Lucy has been secretly engaged these four years to Mr. Edward Ferrars! And to think, Elinor, I teased you about him because he shares the initial of your Mr. Forster, or Mr. Finch, or whoever the elusive Mr. F is! Lucy was bemoaning the delay, now Edward is in mourning, but I told her, ‘You have waited four years. What is one more?’ At least she is able to make her engagement public now. They had feared his mother’s disapproval. Mrs. Ferrars would have disinherited Edward and settled her estate on his brother, who, by Lucy’s account, is a great coxcomb.”

Marianne started and stared and seemed robbed of her powers of speech.

Elinor suffered from no such malady. “I hope…” Her voice trembled only a little. “I hope they will be very happy.” More than that she could not manage. She rose from her seat and walked out of the room, not hesitating even when she heard Marianne’s voice return, full of disbelief and indignation. Elinor did not pause until she reached her chamber. She locked herself in and leant her head against the door, staring at nothing and seeing the hollow look in Edward’s eyes when he had last spoken to her. His apology echoed in her mind.

The tears would not even come at first, but when they finally did come, it felt as if they would never stop.

~*~

On the day that Marianne Dashwood transformed from beautiful Miss into beautiful bride, Elinor stood with her sister, almost completely happy. Marianne glowed with joy. Willoughby, cutting quite the figure in his new coat, looked conscious of the treasure he was acquiring in his wife. Mrs. Dashwood and Margaret wore continual smiles.

Elinor felt only a moment of agony when the vows were exchanged. The vicar’s eyes were the colour of Edward’s, and when he glanced at her during that part of the ceremony, she nearly started. She tried to banish the image of another couple that would be standing before another altar in a matter of months.

She reminded herself that Edward Ferrars had never been free to choose her. Whether his mother or his betrothed had presented the obstacle to her happiness mattered not; that the obstacle had been insurmountable was the material point.

Those present needed and merited her attention, she decided, not others of whom she would rarely hear and whom she might never see again. She closed her eyes for an instant, and when she opened them, she found she could return the vicar’s occasional glances with equanimity.

~*~

Not long after Marianne’s wedding, Elinor sat in Barton Cottage with Colonel Brandon, who once again was staying a few weeks with the Middletons. Margaret had fallen ill that day with a trifling cold, and after a comfortable chat, Mrs. Dashwood had excused herself to attend her youngest daughter upstairs. The moment Elinor had their guest’s company all to herself, she determined to use the circumstance to advantage. “There is something I have been longing to ask you, although I should not.” She took a deep breath before proceeding. “How fares Miss Williams?”

“You know of her? Mrs. Jennings told you.”

“Most of what I know I heard from my brother Willoughby.”

The colonel appeared incredulous. “Does Mrs. Willoughby know?”

“He never told her. I believe he never will.”

“Perhaps that is for the best.” He looked at her a long time before continuing. “Eliza is not my daughter, as some believe, but the daughter of my cousin.” Then the whole story poured forth: his love, his loss, and the tragedies that had followed.

“What of you, Miss Dashwood?” the colonel asked when he had related his account. “You have an air of melancholy about you of late. Do you miss your sister so very much?”

Something in his tone of voice made Elinor suspicious; he seemed to imply that she longed for the company of one who was definitely not Marianne. She would not allow him to think she had tender feelings for Willoughby. He was too much of a gentleman to suggest it openly, but she could imagine that he might wonder at Willoughby’s having taken her into his confidence.

Thus, she repaid Colonel Brandon’s openness with her own. She told him everything. She talked to him as she had not talked to her own mother or even to Marianne, who had only exclaimed at Edward’s having harboured such a great secret and Elinor’s being so apparently unmoved by it before she again became distracted by her own concerns and pleasures in anticipation of the wedding. Colonel Brandon listened as if there were nothing he would rather do. He seemed to take in her words, and as she spoke, she saw her own emotions subtly reflected back on his face.

Their talk ended when Mrs. Dashwood called them both to dinner. Her mother interrupted their tête-à-tête at such a perfect moment that Elinor suspected she had for some time been waiting for a convenient pause in their conversation.

Upon taking his seat, the colonel remarked on a drawing affixed to the dining room wall. “That landscape...the sense of perspective, the balance of light and dark...remarkably well done.”

“Elinor’s handiwork,” Mrs. Dashwood informed him, smiling.

“Truly?” He smiled in turn at Miss Dashwood. “You are quite talented.”

Elinor thanked him and tried not to blush, though she admitted to herself the very great pleasure of having her work not only admired but also understood by a man of sense and education.

~*~

Colonel Brandon had walked to Barton Cottage that day with no other aim than to be near those who were dear to the woman he had recently begun to love.

She was too young for him, he knew; she cared nothing for him, he knew; she loved another (unworthy as he was), he knew.

Now she was married, and there was an end to it.

If only his endings were not so unhappy, perhaps he would truly be able to commit them to the past.

He was well aware of the similarities between Miss Marianne, or Mrs. Willoughby, as he ought to think of her now, and the elder Eliza. Over the years, other women had piqued his interest but none as quickly or as thoroughly. None was as reminiscent of his first love as she. The same warmth of heart, the same eagerness of fancy and spirits characterised both. Just a glimpse of Marianne’s eyes stirred fond memories of the very same features in Eliza.

It was the expression in those eyes when they turned to him that broke the spell again and again, for not once had Mrs. Willoughby looked upon him with anything like affection. And despite his low opinion of her husband, he hoped she would have a fate as far removed from that of the former Mrs. Brandon as possible.

As the mere second son, Brandon had had no means by which to stay the destructive force that had laid to waste nearly everything and everyone connected with Delaford. Even Willoughby’s thoughtless treatment of young Eliza seemed but a faint echo of the elder Brandons’ behaviour towards that branch of the family. Brandon himself had only been able to worry and wait at a distance, arriving only in time to sort the broken pieces left behind by everybody else.

It was too late now for restoration or restitution. Perhaps it was too late for self-recrimination as well, he considered. After all, what good had it done him? It had changed absolutely nothing.

He stood before Barton Cottage and knew, in those moments before the door was opened, that he would have to let her go. As he crossed the threshold and this truth lingered in his mind, he hardly knew which her he meant. Marianne? Eliza? Young Eliza and her child, or at least his hopes for them?

He was met in the passage by Mrs. Dashwood, a bit preoccupied with Miss Margaret’s illness but pleasant as ever. Miss Dashwood sat in the parlour and greeted him, as she always did, with a sincerity of manner that made him feel he was not merely not an inconvenience to be borne but instead a welcome addition to their party. After Mrs. Dashwood left them alone, he spoke of his ward with Miss Dashwood at her particular request. As she began to tell her own story, he felt a kinship he had not anticipated but most certainly appreciated.

Much later that evening, Colonel Brandon took leave of his hostesses. Mrs. Dashwood made her farewells and disappeared upstairs again to see to Miss Margaret. Miss Dashwood accompanied him outside, and they lingered on the lawn.

“I value your friendship,” he told her. Even as he said the word, he realised the term ‘friendship’ did not encompass all that he wanted to express, but he could think of nothing better. “If you should wish to revisit the subject of our earlier conversation, know that I will always be ready to listen.”

“Thank you, Colonel, but I hope our discussion at dinner proved that I shall be able to talk to you of something other than that sad business! Not that I would not do the same for you. Please feel free to raise the subject whenever you like. It is just that I try not to dwell on what will only depress my spirits. I prefer to exert myself. And I do feel so much better now for having told you. I would have you know that.”

He wondered if it might do him good to adopt her method of dealing with disappointment.

Not much more was said before the colonel started for Barton Park. He turned back at the hillside and looked towards the cottage, where he could just make out Miss Dashwood’s silhouette at the door. He waved and continued his solitary moonlit walk.

As he reflected on the unexpected pleasures of this day spent with friends, Colonel Brandon realised that for the first time in a long time, he was more than simply content.

He was happy.

~*~

After their intimate revelations, Elinor and Colonel Brandon saw each other nearly every day. They talked; they rambled across the countryside; they danced whenever Sir John felt obliged to entertain his young neighbours. They visited Whitwell once with a large party and once with only Margaret to chaperone them. They withstood the good-natured, vulgar teasing of Mrs. Jennings and Sir John and the gentle pressure of Mrs. Dashwood, until one day they admitted the possibility that they had been designed for each other.

Brandon and Elinor surprised no one with their engagement, except, perhaps, Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby. —The wedding occurred within a twelvemonth of Marianne’s, and Mrs. Dashwood was consoled for every past affliction by the sincere attachments her daughters had inspired in their husbands.

~The End~

Such an Inclination

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(2010)
Emma
Specific request for Emma fanfic
Mr John Knightley's remarks cause Emma to reconsider her opinion on Mr Elton's matrimonial interests—and to discover where her own interests lie as well.

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‘Mr Elton in love with me! What an idea!’

‘I do not say it is so; but you will do well to consider whether it is so or not, and to regulate your behaviour accordingly. I think your manners to him encouraging. I speak as a friend, Emma. You had better look about you, and ascertain what you do, and what you mean to do.’

‘I thank you; but I assure you, you are quite mistaken. Mr Elton and I are very good friends, and nothing more;’ and she walked on, amusing herself in the consideration of the blunders which often arise from a partial knowledge of circumstances, of the mistakes which people of high pretensions to judgement are for ever falling into; and not very well pleased with her brother for imagining her blind, and ignorant, and in want of counsel.

—Chapter 13, Emma

A minute passed before Mr John Knightley continued the subject. “Had I known the possibility had never even occurred to you, I might not have offered Mr Elton a seat in my carriage. Under the circumstances, it would be best if he were not to have everything made easy for him.”

Emma, rather offended that her brother persisted in speaking of the matter, looked coldly at him. “What can you mean?”

“Do you think I did not see his look of pleasure, of exultation, I dare say, when he accepted my offer and turned to you? It was not simply because he thought I understood his intentions and approved of them. Yes,” he insisted as she stared at him in disbelief, “I am sure he thought exactly that. And it was certainly not because I shall spare him a very cold walk.” He turned a fond eye towards his boys, who had run ahead, well out of hearing of their father and aunt’s quiet conversation. “I cannot say whether his feelings are deep or shallow at present, but I know the meaning of that look. I am a man, Emma, who has not been so long married as to have forgotten the beginnings of romance or how quickly admiration can turn to love.”

“If you must you continue to entertain this fanciful notion,” she said, not bothering to hide her exasperation, “I only ask that you not seek to persuade me to take it up as well. I have never had such an idea, and I cannot adopt it now.”

“You may protest all you like, but I am convinced that it is hardly my company he anticipates, or that of the Westons.” He said no more.

Emma was too angry to respond, and her only satisfaction stemmed from having shown enough of her displeasure to keep John quiet. Eager to be at Hartfield again, she hurried on to keep pace with her nephews. Her brother’s words would not leave her mind, however, and the more she endeavoured to put them out of her head, the less secure she became in her ability to refute his conjectures. He had a man’s view, something in any other situation she believed she would be disposed at least to value for its own sake, whether she agreed with that view or not. Moreover, John rarely offered an unsolicited opinion on a matter so unconnected with himself. ‘I speak as a friend,’ he had said.

His brother had already declared that Mr Elton would not choose Harriet Smith, that the vicar would never marry so imprudently. Emma would be forced to examine Mr Elton’s actions in a very different light if she accepted these two pieces of intelligence as the impartial observations of two intelligent men. And she ought to do so, for what could the brothers truly gain or lose if she, and not Harriet, were Mr Elton’s choice? Especially as she would never consider marrying the man! It would be madness and presumption for Mr Elton to think himself worthy of her.

Yet what pain and humiliation lay ahead if he really preferred her to Harriet! What an idea, indeed. How would Harriet bear it? How would Emma herself bear with the awkwardness of being in company with her or Mr Elton again?

Her brow creased as she made polite conversation with her family. Sigh followed sigh as she dressed for dinner. By the time the carriages were brought round to convey them all to Randalls, her head positively throbbed. Isabella noticed something was amiss and fretted, but Emma assured her that she was well enough to go, more for her sister’s sake and her father’s than honesty’s, and declared that in any case she should be miserable at home, which was true enough.

To her surprise, her brother approached her and remarked in a low voice, “You have been unusually quiet since our walk. Are you concerned about that matter we discussed earlier? You need not worry. George and I shall be ready to intervene if the need arises.”

“I thank you for your concern, but I do not expect any difficulties.”

“You are not very good at dissembling, Emma.”

His rueful smile made her feel even worse. If she had drawn the attention of both Isabella and John, how was she to appear tolerably cheerful at Randalls? Mrs Weston would immediately take note. “I am well,” she determined, “if not perfectly so. Let us talk no more of this. I am anxious to see Mrs Weston.”

“Now, that I can easily believe.” He smiled and they walked together to the carriage.

The evening turned out to be just as dreadful as she had feared. Mr Elton clung to her side, inserted himself into nearly every conversation she attempted with others, raised a few eyebrows with his overly solicitous behaviour, and generally cast a pall over the otherwise cheerful holiday atmosphere. John and his brother did what they could to draw Mr Elton’s attention away without being uncivil, but the vicar proved a tenacious suitor. Emma could only be grateful Harriet had been spared those mortifying scenes.

Either John somehow knew when she had reached the limits of her endurance, or for once their separate, selfish concerns coincided in a joint wish for an early end to the evening. Soon after the gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room, he took the opportunity to glance outside. One well-aimed remark about the amount of snow covering the ground, and Mr Woodhouse rapidly grew anxious to depart; moments later, Mr Knightley rang the bell and the party broke up.

Mr Elton escorted Emma outside, to her great consternation, and for an instant she feared the two would have a tête-à-tête drive. Fortunately she caught her brother’s eye just as he, having forgotten their previous arrangement, very naturally prepared to enter the first carriage with his wife and father-in-law. He came to her aid immediately.

“Go with Isabella and your father,” he whispered. “I shall see Mr Elton home.”

Emma thanked him, surprised to discover her throat was too thick with emotion to say any more, and she did what he advised without looking back.

At Hartfield, gruel was sent round for some and the usual sort of refreshments for others. Mr Knightley had joined them instead of continuing on to Donwell, and at the first opportunity he drew Emma aside. “Now tell me, Emma, what brought on this crisis of courtship that I witnessed tonight. Elton could not have demonstrated his preference for your company more plainly had he stood atop the Westons’ dining table and shouted it to us all. Either he did not notice your manner had cooled towards him, or he did not care.”

“Foolish man! How could he imagine for a moment I would be pleased?” She immediately blushed as she recalled several instances when her words, manner, or both might have given more than enough encouragement to a man so self-deceived. “Must have been the wine,” she said half-heartedly.

Mr Knightley smiled and took a sip from his own glass. “Did you not take it upon yourself to find him a bride? I heard you say, in this very parlour, that such was your intention.”

“I never meant to include myself among the possibilities!”

“I know that, but it is only because I know you so well that I have never believed the preference you have lately shown him was meant to bring on his addresses.”

“I am just glad the evening is over and he is away from us all.”

“Do not be so hard on him.”

“That is easy for you to say. He did not follow you about all evening. ‘Miss Woodhouse, may I get you some more cake?’ ‘Miss Woodhouse, I fear you are too warm. Might I suggest a seat farther from the fire? Or perhaps you are too cold, Miss Woodhouse.’ ‘Miss Woodhouse, Miss Woodhouse, Miss Woodhouse!’ I was growing weary of my own name.”

“You must admit that so many smiles and compliments as he has received in the last several weeks might turn a man’s head, especially coming from a young lady as beautiful and witty as she is charming.”

“Mr Knightley, you flatter me.”

“I only speak the truth.”

“There are several beautiful faces in Highbury, some of which I had hoped he would notice.” There was one, at least. Poor Harriet!

“Confess, Emma, that you did want him to marry Miss Smith.”

She looked down. There was no use in denying it. “Yes, I did. I can only be thankful that he did not say something so pointed as to force a confession from me tonight as well.”

His smile made her almost comfortable again, and his next words soothed her even further. “Tell me, Emma,” Mr Knightley entreated, clasping her hand. “Are you truly well?”

“While I am still shocked by Mr Elton’s boldness, I sincerely hope I have not injured him. Yet I cannot believe he is really in love with me, for anyone who knows me at all must know we should not suit.” She sighed. “I am well.”

“John will be glad to hear it.”

“Your brother’s assistance was invaluable. I have thanked him, but it seems so little. I hope he understands how much I appreciate his efforts. And I appreciate yours as well.”

He squeezed her hand and held it. “I am certain John knows, and I am always glad to be of assistance to you. Now, the material question is this: are you convinced that you ought to have done with match-making?” He looked into her eyes and would not allow her to avoid his gaze.

“But what about Har—”

“Emma?”

What about Harriet, she had been about to say. She no longer cared if Mr Elton ever found a companion to share the vicarage.

“If you are worried about your friend,” Mr Knightley said, “I know of one deserving young man who still pines for her. Perhaps—but we need not revive that subject.”

She quite agreed; she was not so chagrined as to have reconsidered her opinion of Robert Martin. “A thousand things may arise in the next weeks and months.”

“Highbury may be inundated with eligible young men, for instance.”

“At least one eligible young man is long overdue.”

He stopped smiling. “You speak of Frank Churchill.”

“Of course.”

“You have never even met him! You cannot intend him for Harriet Smith, can you?”

“No. I had no thought of it.”

“For yourself, then?” This time he looked down, but she could not fathom why.

“I own that if I were inclined to marry, Mr Frank Churchill would seem the perfect choice.” Even with Mr Knightley’s face turned away, she could see him grimace. “Yet tonight, I found myself quite out of charity with him.”

“Oh?” He raised his head.

“I resented his absence, and you will not think better of me when you hear why. Oh, of course I felt the slight to dear Mrs Weston, but my anger also had selfish roots. I know it is ridiculous, but I cannot help but think that had he done as he ought and visited his father’s new bride, I might have had an easier time tonight.”

“He would have taken Elton’s place as your suitor.”

“He would have been the focus of the evening! All attention would have been on him! Mr Elton would not have found it so easy to vex me, that is all.” She laughed at his forlorn look and wondered at it. “The more I think on it, the more I am convinced Mr Churchill and I would not suit, either. He really should have come to pay his respects to my friend. How can he neglect his father so?” She glanced at her own father. “His continued absence savours of disrespect or disapprobation, and I have not made up my mind as to which is worse.”

“Truly?”

Mr Knightley’s face took on a more familiar look now, and to prevent his lecturing her, Emma said, “I know I should not speak ill of Mr Weston’s son. I am sure he is a worthy young gentleman, despite the influence of Mrs Churchill.”

“You may be right. And we have spent far too much time on the subject of matrimony, I think.”

“Yes. It is pointless for me to talk of marriage, at least for myself. I could not leave my father.”

“No. I suppose not.”

“Therefore it does not matter whether Mr Churchill is disrespectful or disapproving.”

“True.” He looked as if nothing mattered very much at the moment.

“Do you smile because you agree, or because I have continued to talk of marriage despite your claim that we have talked of it long enough?”

His smile widened into a playful grin, making him appear for an instant to be the younger of the two Knightley men. “You may speak of whatever you like. You are mistress of this house.”

“Yes, I am. The topic was marriage, I believe. You never speak of it in regard to yourself. But then who is good enough for you?”

“Who, indeed?”

He seemed to be staring hard at her, almost staring into her, studying her. There was no anger, no anxiety; it seemed a look to signify a great deal of curiosity and interest, but what was there about her that he did not already know and had not known these many years?

“May I tell you something in confidence?” he asked her.

“Certainly.”

“It has been a long time since I thought seriously of marriage. We live in a rather confined, unvarying society.”

“True. Highbury has no more been inundated with eligible young women than with young men.”

“Precisely.” His smile was brief. “Recently, however—very recently, in fact—I have found myself considering the possibility again.”

“But little Henry would be supplanted!” She felt instantly stupid for having voiced her thoughts, but for some reason the very idea disturbed her and she had been unable to check herself.

Thankfully, his chastisement was gentle. “I said possibility, Emma, although John would rather see me married than gain the estate for his son. He speaks highly of the institution himself, as well you know.”

She smiled. For all his faults of temper, John truly did love Isabella.

Caught up in her thoughts, she was unaware of how close Mr Knightley had leant towards her until she felt his breath warm her cheek. She shivered. “I have a proposition for you,” he whispered.

“Do you?” she breathed, hardly knowing where to look.

“If you must make matches, perhaps you had better limit your efforts to finding me a wife. I shall not mind sacrificing myself to your scheming if it will spare our neighbours.”

The suggestion, the intimate nature of it, was wholly unexpected. “Mr Knightley, you surprise me.”

“Will you consider it?”

“Are you certain you wish to commit such an important matter to my care?”

He looked at her a moment before replying, “I would be quite happy to commit myself to you.”

She stared at him, bewildered. “Oh.”

“In fact, Emma, I—”

“The snow is still falling, George.” John strode over, interrupting them. “If you do not want to stay the night here, well…”

“Trying to be rid of me?”

“Certainly not! You look quite cosy in this corner.” His light-hearted chuckle belied the depth of his penetrating gaze, and he said slyly as he walked off, “Tucked away like lovers rather than brother and sister.”

Mr Knightley laughed warmly at the remark and glanced at Emma.

She made no reply. Her mind was busy, and once open to suspicion, made rapid progress; she touched, she admitted, she acknowledged the whole truth. Why had the mere mention of a future Mrs Knightley discomfited her? Why had Mr Knightley’s warm breath made her quiver, while his daring request, so coolly delivered, had made her flush with heat?

Moreover, why had John’s impertinent comment seemed anything but preposterous?

The answer darted through her with the speed of an arrow.

How she would tell him all that her heart had begun to discover, how she would enlighten Harriet and avoid Mr Elton, how she would accomplish that most monumental of tasks: convincing her father to let her go—all these problems were safely left to the next day’s contemplation. Tonight, she needed to do only one thing, and after all the blunders of the past weeks, she determined to do this one thing well.

“Mr Knightley, you are most welcome to stay.”

“Thank you. I may do just that.” His look told her he would have said more had this been the time or place for such disclosures, but they had already been interrupted once.

“It has been quite an eventful day. I believe I am ready to retire, but before I do, I wish to assure you…” She had never been as forward as she was about to be with him now. She had never in her life felt such an inclination as this. The fact that he had put himself in her hands gave her the courage to complete what she had begun. “I assure you that I will be content,” she said. “No,” she corrected herself, smiling. “I shall be extraordinarily pleased to devote…myself…to your happiness.”

Mr Knightley’s eyes lit up, and she knew that he had understood her. He escorted her from the room, and if Emma entertained hopes for a very particular goodnight gesture once they were truly alone (and if Mr Knightley satisfied those hopes), this authoress surely would not tell.


~The End~