‘So,’ Marianne said, twisting her hair up into a knot and then letting it cascade over her shoulders, ‘he’s kind of bought us?’
Thomas shrugged.
‘There isn’t a bad bone in his body. But he likes people around him; he likes people to like what he likes. And he likes the business. We all like what we’re good at.’
Belle looked at Margaret. ‘Find some shoes, darling.’
‘But I—’
‘Shoes,’ Belle said. ‘And perhaps brush your hair?’
Elinor said, trying to be truthful while not betraying the acuteness of their situation to Thomas, ‘We could do with some – well, work, couldn’t we?’
Belle glanced at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean …’ Elinor said, fidgeting with the buttons on her cardigan, ‘I mean, if the design studio could use you in some way, and Marianne and Margaret were sort of – of needed for the catalogue, it would be kind – kind of helpful?’
Belle turned to look at her fully. ‘To whom?’
Elinor stood a little straighter. ‘Us.’
‘In what way exactly?’
Elinor observed that Thomas was deliberately concentrating on his tea. She said, quietly, ‘Money, Ma.’
‘Why’, Belle said, almost petulantly, ‘is that all you can ever think about?’
‘Because’, Elinor said, in the same low voice, ‘someone has to.’
‘But we’ve got—’
‘It’s not enough. Not for four people in a cottage in the middle of nowhere, one of whom has to start school on Wednesday.’
Margaret reappeared wearing grubby trainers with the laces undone. She said, loudly, ‘I don’t want to go to school.’
Thomas put his mug down with decision. He said to her, firmly, ‘It’s the law.’
‘Thank you,’ Elinor said.
Belle looked at Marianne. She said, with forced gaiety, ‘It looks like we’re outnumbered, darling!’
‘If you mean’, Elinor said with sudden exasperation, ‘that you think you don’t have to make an effort to contribute, then you’re quite right. You’re outnumbered. Everyone has to do their bit.’
There was a brief pause, and then Marianne, apparently examining the ends of a handful of her hair for split ends, said to Elinor, ‘And what bit are you going to do?’
For a moment Elinor thought she might lose all control. But then she caught Thomas’s eye and registered a quick glance of sympathy, if not understanding. She swallowed, and let her hand drop from her cardigan buttons. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I was going to ask Sir John about work of some kind anyway. So I can do it, can’t I, this morning.’
‘Oh, good,’ Marianne said. There was the faintest edge of sarcasm to her voice. She let her hair fall again and smiled at Thomas. ‘Let’s get it over with, then, shall we?’
‘It was my dream, of course,’ Sir John said, ‘to keep everything being manufactured in Devon. I started off that way, you know, got all the machines moved from Honiton, stayed up half the night mugging up labour laws, but I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t get the margins. Labour costs in the UK are just too high. So the machines – completely outdated now, of course – moulder in the old stables, and we outsource everything to North Portugal. Modern factory on an industrial estate. Not an oil painting as a place, but they do the business. Excellent quality—’ He broke off and looked at Margaret. He said abruptly, ‘You bored?’
Margaret nodded energetically. Sir John beamed at her. He seemed entirely unoffended. ‘You’re a baggage, Miss Margaret Dashwood.’
‘Perhaps,’ Belle said hastily, ‘these aren’t quite the clothes that someone of Margaret’s age—’
Sir John put an arm round Belle’s shoulders. He said, interrupting, ‘We’re coming to something that’s for every age. You’ll be bowled over by my design studio. Computerised drawing boards, technology to ascertain every average body shape and size …’
He began to guide her towards a doorway through which a high-ceilinged, brilliantly lit room was visible, talking all the time. Margaret trailed in his wake, sighing and scuffing her shoes, and Marianne followed, equally slowly and at an eloquently disdainful distance. Elinor watched them disappear into the studio ahead of her and felt, with mounting alarm, that it was going to be extremely hard, if not impossible, to persuade Sir John to give her any time or attention. He had already jovially dismissed their anxiety about getting Margaret to school by declaring that Thomas would drive her as far as the bus that would take her into Exeter, and, having done that, clearly felt he had more than done his duty by his new tenants for the moment. How could she, Elinor, buttonhole him further and explain to him in a way that neither dented their dignity nor diminished their plight that they were sorely in need of opportunities to make some money? How did you manage to make it look as if you weren’t, somehow, just begging?
There were steps behind her. Elinor turned to see Colonel Brandon approaching from the stairwell that led up to the studio level. The night before, he had been dressed in an unexceptionable tidy country uniform of dark trousers and formal sweater. This morning, he was in a daytime, olive-green version of the same and his shoes, Elinor could not help noticing, were properly polished.
He smiled at her. He said, ‘Had enough of thornproof waistcoats and poachers’ pockets?’
She smiled back, gratefully. ‘It’s very impressive. I’m – I’m just a bit preoccupied this morning. I’m sure it’s just moving – the change and everything.’
Bill Brandon put his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘Especially if you’re the practical one.’
‘Well – yes.’
‘Which you are.’
Elinor flushed slightly. She looked at the toe of her Converse boot and kicked it against the floor. She said, reluctantly, ‘A bit.’
‘We’re so useful, we practical people. We hold it altogether. But we’re seen as killjoys, somehow. Most unfair.’
She glanced at him. He looked so together and trim, the open collar of his checked shirt well ironed, his hands relaxedly in the pockets of his trousers. She indicated her jeans, and the cardigan that had once been her father’s. ‘Sorry to be so scruffy.’
‘You girls’, Bill Brandon said gallantly, ‘could wear absolutely anything to great effect. Your sister …’
‘Oh, I know.’
‘Is she in there?’
‘Yes. With the others.’
‘And why aren’t you?’
Elinor sighed. She slid her own hands into the pockets of her cardigan and hunched her shoulders. ‘I rather – wanted to see Sir John.’
‘Jonno?’
‘Yes. By – by himself.’
Bill Brandon looked carefully at her. He said, ‘Is everything all right?’
Elinor said nothing. She pushed the knitted pockets as far down as they would go and stared at her feet.
‘Elinor. What is it?’
‘It’s – nothing.’
‘Look,’ he said. ‘Look, we don’t know each other very well yet, but I’m sure we will because I’m here all the time – it’s such a contrast to Delaford.’
‘Delaford?’
‘Yes. It’s – where I live. Or, rather, where I have a flat. It’s a – well, it’s a place I started when I came out of the Army. I wanted to help some of my soldiers who’d got into a bit of trouble with drink and drugs and what have you. The result of what they’d been through, you know, coping mechanisms and all that, never mind not being able to adjust to life outside the Army. And I wanted – well, it’s another story, but I wanted to help addicts in general, really, I wanted—’
‘Addicts?’ Elinor said, startled.
He nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Mostly drugs, but some alcoholics.’
‘So that’s what Sir John meant about your good works!’
‘Jonno’s been wonderful. So supportive, so generous. Our best patron.’
‘That’s wonderful,’ Elinor said seriously. ‘Really wonderful. What you do.’
‘Not re
ally.’
‘We should have asked you, last night, we should have—’
‘No,’ Bill Brandon said, ‘you shouldn’t. I don’t talk about it much. It’s better to do something rather than talk about it. Don’t you think?’
Elinor relaxed her shoulders a little. ‘If you know what to do, it is.’
He moved slightly closer to her. ‘Which is where I came in, I think. What is the matter?’
She looked up at him. He was wearing an expression of the greatest kindness. She said, ‘I’m – just a bit worried. That’s all.’
‘About moving here?’
‘Not – in itself …’
‘Money?’ he said.
She let out a breath. ‘How did you know?’
‘Just a guess.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Money. We’re none of us really fit to work but we’ve got to. At least I have. And I was going to ask Sir John—’ She stopped. Then she said, sadly, ‘I don’t really know what I was going to ask him. For help, I suppose. Unspecified help. Hopeless, really.’
‘Not hopeless.’
‘He’s so busy, he does so much already.’
Bill Brandon looked towards the studio again. And then he looked back at Elinor. ‘He does do a lot, you’re quite right. He’s a mover and shaker by nature. So why don’t you ask someone who isn’t trying to run a business as well as a wife and four children and a sizeable estate in dire economic times? Why don’t you ask me?’
Back at the cottage, Marianne said she felt restless. She said, gazing out of the sitting-room window at the dramatic fall of land below them, ‘We can unpack any time, can’t we? Look at that blue sky.’
Elinor, coming into the room with a stepladder in order to help her mother hang their own curtains, said, ‘And those clouds.’
‘They’re nothing. They’re blowing away. Anyway, what does getting wet matter? We always got wet at Norland.’
Belle was pulling lengths of battered old damask out of a box to replace Sir John’s brightly patterned ready-made curtains. She said to Marianne, ‘What are you suggesting, darling?’
‘A walk.’
‘A walk,’ Margaret said in tones of disgust.
‘Yes,’ Marianne said, ‘a walk. And you’re coming with me.’
‘I hate walks.’
‘Why d’you want to walk?’ Belle said.
‘I want to see the old house Sir John talked about. The old house in the valley where the old lady lives who never goes out. She sounds like Miss Havisham.’
‘I don’t’, Margaret said, ‘want to see anything.’
Belle regarded the damask. It had once been deep burgundy red. It was now, faded by the sun, irregularly striped with the colour of weak tea. But anything was better than bright blue cotton printed with stylised sunflowers. She said, absently, ‘Lovely, darling.’
‘But I—’ began Margaret.
Belle raised her head. ‘I don’t want Marianne walking alone. Not after the other day. And certainly not till we know our way about.’
From the top of the ladder Elinor said, ‘The house is called Allenham. The old lady is Mrs Smith.’
No one took any notice.
‘We’re going,’ Marianne said to Margaret.
‘You’re going,’ Belle said to Margaret.
Margaret looked up at Elinor on her ladder. ‘Why can’t you go?’
‘Because,’ Elinor said.
‘I always have to do what I don’t want,’ Margaret said.
Belle dropped the curtains and put an arm round her. ‘I promise’, she said, ‘that you’ll get to an age where nobody tells you what to do any more. One day you can do exactly as you like.’
Elinor leaned forward to unhook the sunflower curtains. ‘I wish,’ she said softly, to no one in particular.
From the cottage, a path ran steeply up through the woods behind it, crossed a narrow, sunken lane, and gave on to a high, open ridge from which it was possible to see down, as if one were a passing bird, into all the interconnected valleys below. Once up there, Margaret, who had complained loudly all the way through the trees, became infected by the wind and the height, and went whirling, screaming, along the ridge, her arms held out and her hair streaming like tattered banners round her head.
Marianne followed more slowly, reluctantly entranced by what lay below her. There was Barton Park and its outbuildings, as neat and miniature as doll’s-house furniture, set among scattered small blobs of trees and connected by the regular pale curves of drives, with green spaces in between dotted with cotton-wool balls of sheep and black and white dominoes of cows. Smoke rose from chimneys here and there, and the postman’s red van crept along a drive like a little bright toy. And then, there, in the next valley, clinging to the hillside below a great hanger of trees, was the fairy-tale house of Allenham, built of soft, rosy brick, with twisted Tudor chimneys and narrow, glittering windows. Its gardens – famous, Sir John said, for being laid out to a particular design in 1640 and never substantially changed – were a distinct formal pattern, visible clearly from this height, of tall dark hedges and lower greener hedges, punctuated only by a few fountains standing dry and still in their pale stone basins. It was a different period to Norland, it was in a different situation to Norland, but something about the romance of that old, quiet house in its valley caught nostalgically at Marianne’s throat and made her abruptly feel tears rising.
‘She’s an old dear, Mrs Smith,’ Sir John had said. ‘She’s been a widow forever. Old Smith’s family made money in the north, and he brought it down here and bought that house. Spent a fortune on it. Lovely old boy. Took up local history. Too bad they never had children, and now she’s there alone, mouldering away, looked after by all these agency girls from God knows where. Heaven knows what they make of it, these Filippinos. If you’d grown up in Manila, you’d think you’d landed on the moon, arriving at Allenham, wouldn’t you?’
Margaret came panting up. Marianne pointed down to the house. ‘Look.’
‘Bit creepy,’ Margaret said. She had taken her fleece off and tied it round her waist.
‘It’s fantastic,’ Marianne said.
Margaret squinted up at the sky. ‘It’s going to rain.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘You haven’t even got a sweater.’
‘I don’t mind. What’s rain?’
A large drop fell, on cue, on to Margaret’s hand. She held it out. ‘This,’ she said.
Marianne glanced behind her. From the south-west and the direction of the sea, an immense pile of gun-metal clouds was moving purposefully towards them. She said, ‘It’s only rain, Mags.’
‘No,’ Margaret said, and her voice was suddenly urgent. She pointed, following Marianne’s gaze, at the moment that a dramatic gash of lightning split the clouds and a crash of thunder echoed round the hills.
‘Help!’ Marianne said in a different tone.
Margaret unwrapped her fleece and thrust it at her sister. ‘Take this.’
‘No.’
‘Take it. Take it. I haven’t got asthma.’
As Marianne struggled into the fleece, the rain abruptly began in earnest. Pulling her sister behind her, Margaret began to retrace their steps at a stumbling run, with the rain bouncing off the turf beside them.
‘Slower,’ Marianne pleaded.
‘No,’ Margaret shouted. ‘No. We’ve got to get back, we’ve got to get home!’
‘I can’t—’
‘You can! You can! You must.’
They floundered on along the ridge, the turf increasingly slippery under their feet, their hands increasingly slippery in one another’s.
‘Oh please,’ Margaret kept shouting. ‘Oh, please, run.’
‘I can’t, I can’t go faster, I can’t see …’
Ahead of them, the hedge that bordered the lane grew dimly visible through the sheets of rain.
‘Nearly there!’ Margaret cried. Her hair was plastered to her face and needed perpetually pushing aside with
her free hand. ‘Not far!’
Marianne gave a little choked scream and then her hand slid from Margaret’s and she subsided on the earth, heaving and gasping.
Margaret collapsed beside her. ‘Marianne? Marianne? Are you OK?’
Marianne couldn’t speak. She sat where she had fallen, crouched on the sodden grass, her hands pressed to her chest, battling for breath.
Margaret began to scrabble in her sister’s pocket. ‘Your inhaler, your inhaler.’
Marianne shook her head, jerkily.
‘What d’you mean? You haven’t got it? You came without your inhaler?’
Ashen and fighting, Marianne managed a brief nod.
‘Oh my God,’ Margaret said. She could feel panic rising in her like hysteria. She mustn’t, she mustn’t. What would Ma do, what would Ellie do, she must think, think, she must – she stood up.
‘Listen!’ she shouted above the rain. ‘Listen! I’m going to race down to the cottage to get your inhaler and Ma and Ellie. Don’t move. D’you hear me? Don’t move, just do little breaths, don’t panic. OK? OK?’
Marianne lifted one hand weakly from her chest in acknowledgement and Margaret set off towards the hedge and the lane at a speed she did not know she was capable of. As she plunged through the hedge she was aware of a car coming down the lane with its headlights on, a car coming fast, too fast, and even in the midst of her fervour about Marianne it occurred to her that the situation would not be improved if she managed to get herself run over, in addition. So she slithered down the bank and flattened herself against it to allow the car to roar by.
But it didn’t. The driver obviously saw her sprawled against the bank below the hedge and screeched to a halt, spraying her with muddy water and grit. The passenger window opposite her slid down and a man’s voice said, impatiently, ‘You OK?’
Margaret scrambled up. The sight of another human, and an adult, was almost too welcome to be borne. She clutched at the gleaming car and thrust her dripping head into the interior.
‘Oh please, oh please, it’s my sister!’
The driver of the car was a young man, a dark young man. Even in acute distress, with her vision partially obscured by her wet hair, Margaret could see that on the scale of hotness, he registered fairly close to a full ten. He was – amazing. He said, slightly less irritably, ‘What about your sister?’
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