Sense & Sensibility

by Joanna Trollope

  ‘It’s not good news, Mother. Are you sitting down?’

  ‘I hear better if I’m standing up,’ Mrs Ferrars said, as if explaining something to someone extremely stupid. ‘You know that.’

  ‘Mother,’ Fanny said, ‘it’s about Robert.’

  ‘What?’ Mrs Ferrars demanded, suddenly alert. ‘Is he ill?’

  ‘No, Mother,’ Fanny said. ‘No. He’s perfectly fine. But – but he’s got married, would you believe …’

  There was a pause. Mrs Ferrars adjusted something in her mind. Then she said, ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘It’s not nonsense, Mother.’

  ‘If Robert were married,’ Mrs Ferrars said firmly, ‘he or the Mortons would have told me. He tells me everything.’

  ‘Mother,’ Fanny said, raising her voice again, ‘he hasn’t married Tassy Morton.’

  ‘He must have.’

  ‘He hasn’t, he hasn’t, he’s married – oh God, Mother – Robert has married Lucy Steele.’

  There was a further pause. Then Mrs Ferrars said, ‘Who?’

  ‘Lucy Steele. The girl with the teeth and the sister. You know, Mother. She was going to marry Edward.’

  Mrs Ferrars gave a little scream. ‘You’re making it up!’

  ‘I’m not, Mother. I’m not. They got married in Devon or something, from Lucy’s home, on an impulse.’

  ‘Why?’ Mrs Ferrars wailed. ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, Mother, who knows? He’s always been a law unto himself.’

  ‘How could he do this to me?’ Mrs Ferrars cried. ‘How could he treat his own mother like this?’

  ‘It’s not about you, Mother,’ Fanny said crossly. ‘It’s about the family. And Father’s money.’

  Mrs Ferrars seemed to pull herself together. ‘Well,’ she said in a much more decided tone, ‘they won’t get a penny of that.’

  Fanny said wearily, ‘You don’t mean that, Mother.’

  ‘I do, I certainly do!’

  ‘No, you don’t. You adore Robert. You always forgive Robert.’

  Mrs Ferrars said, unexpectedly, ‘Why isn’t that girl marrying Edward? After all the fuss?’

  Fanny said sharply, ‘Because she knows which side her bread is buttered, Mother. And she knows Robert is your favourite.’

  ‘She’s right,’ Mrs Ferrars said, her voice somewhat softened, ‘I have always found Robert much easier to deal with. A sweeter nature, you know.’

  ‘So you’ll forgive him—’

  ‘I didn’t say that, Fanny.’

  ‘But you will. You’ll let Lucy worm her way in, with Robert’s help, and before you know it, she’ll have carte blanche to do up the house in Norfolk—’

  ‘Don’t be so jealous, Fanny,’ Mrs Ferrars said. ‘I’ve never liked sibling rivalry: you knew that. And you’ve had your fair share, and more. I don’t care for someone with a house like Norland begrudging her brother having a mere farmhouse in Norfolk.’

  ‘Mother, I never said, I never meant—’

  ‘In any case,’ Mrs Ferrars said, interrupting, ‘that house needs renovating. I would say, actually, that renovation is long overdue.’

  Fanny gave a little shriek, and threw her phone across the room. Mrs Ferrars took her own phone away from her ear and shook it a little, as if in puzzlement, and then, with determined precision, began to dial Robert’s number.

  Sir John Middleton was in his element. The weather was better, the house was full – both Bill Brandon and Abigail Jennings had returned to occupy their old bedrooms for at least a long weekend – that poor girl up at the cottage was on the mend, and there was also a full-blown romance going on up there between her sister and the F-word boy. Add to that the news that his son and heir had gained a place at his father’s old school – Mary was making an immense fuss about the boy boarding, at his age, but he had yet to silence her with reminders of pipes and tunes – and the signing of a satisfactory new contract with a clothing distributor in northern India, and Sir John could feel that all was pretty well in his good-natured if not over-sensitive world.

  He was especially pleased to see old Bill back at Barton Park. It seemed months since he had been there, months in which Bill had been preoccupied with all the halfwits he seemed so devoted to, never mind that mad bad daughter of the girl he’d once been so keen on. Sir John shook his head. He had a shocking propensity to try and sort the wrecks, poor old Bill, and seemed never happier than when knee deep in other people’s problems and trouble. And it had had an effect, of course it had, ageing the poor fellow before his time, stiffening his morals, fossilising his sense of fun. But he seemed different this visit, very different, improved even. In fact, Sir John would go as far as to say that Bill was very nearly relaxed.

  Last night, when they were all at dinner – nine of them round the table, and Sir John would ideally have liked double that number – and those girls were telling Bill what had happened to Robert Ferrars and Lucy Steele, Bill was laughing with the best of them. Mind you, Marianne was a brilliant mimic, and by the time she’d taken off Lucy Steele and old Mrs Ferrars, and Fanny Dashwood having the vapours, they were all of them sobbing with laughter. It had been a riot, an absolute riot. With many more riots to come, Sir John sincerely hoped. Not only was fun right up his street, but it livened Mary up nicely. She’d been, well, quite amenable later that night, even – dare he say it – a bit frisky. He beamed to himself and leaned forward to read something that had just popped up on his screen.

  There was a knock on his office door.

  ‘Come!’ he called.

  The door opened on to a familiar billow of scarves.

  ‘Jonno?’

  ‘Abi, my dear.’

  ‘Am I interrupting?’

  ‘Yes, Abi. You always are. I am a busy man.’

  ‘Two minutes, Jonno.’

  He waved a hand towards a chair the other side of the desk.

  ‘Sit, you. No coffee, because I don’t want you staying.’

  Abigail subsided into the chair. ‘I must have a little sound-off.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  Mrs Jennings settled her scarves. Then she leaned forward slightly.

  ‘Last night, dear. Huge fun. Enormous fun. And those girls are a joy, aren’t they? Bill looked a decade younger, even though there is no point in him gazing at Marianne. She could have her pick, the form she’s in right now, she has no need—’

  ‘Abi,’ Sir John said warningly.

  Abigail collected herself. ‘Sorry, dear. Sorry. Well, what I wanted to say was that I’m afraid I just don’t care how rude they are about that little minx, Lucy Steele. I tell you, Jonno, she was in my sitting room, pleading poverty and true love for Edward, ten minutes before she runs off with his brother! And then, no sooner has she gone, than her sister tips up, having lent Lucy whatever she could spare, in a panic that Mrs Ferrars would have their guts for garters, and also distraught because she now couldn’t afford the plane fare to join her plastic surgeon at a villa party he’s having in Ibiza, or somewhere. So, me being as silly as I’m soft-hearted—’

  ‘Abi,’ Sir John said, ‘you could tell me all this any time. I may look as if I’m hardly ever working—’

  Mrs Jennings shook her head. ‘I’m hopeless, dear. Really I am. But I’ll get to the point. And the point is – is that Ferrars boy really in love with Elinor?’

  Sir John gawped at her. ‘Several hundred per cent, I’d say.’

  ‘Well,’ Abigail said, ‘I need to know because you see, he utterly adored Lucy.’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’

  ‘My dear Jonno, she broke his heart!’

  Sir John stood up, for emphasis. ‘Rubbish,’ he said.

  She stood too, uncertainly.

  ‘He was trying to do the right thing,’ Sir John said. ‘He felt obliged to her family, having a mother like he’s got. That’s all.’

  ‘But she said—’

  Sir John strode over to his office door and opened it. ‘Out, Abi.’

  ‘Yes, dea
r.’

  She trotted over, and paused in front of him. She said, defensively, ‘I like to think the best of people, Jonno.’

  He bent towards her. He said firmly, ‘Then don’t waste your time on the worst ones, Abi,’ and pushed her out of the room.

  Edward was lying on the sofa at Barton Cottage. He had spent the day at Delaford with Bill Brandon, being shown round the place and meeting the people, and had come back to Barton with the contented and slightly disbelieving feeling that he had at last found a work environment that chimed amazingly with his own temperament and beliefs. He was waiting now, his head on a cushion and his feet dangling over the arm at the end of the sofa, for Elinor to come home from work in Exeter.

  He could not believe the depth of his contentment, nor the height of his optimism. He wasn’t sure he had ever felt either, before, and certainly never to such a degree. Everywhere he looked seemed bathed in light, and every time he thought of Elinor, something inside him felt as if it was simply dissolving in rapture. He lay there, looking at a faint crack in the ceiling and watching a very small spider venturing out along its length, and thought that if this was happiness, then it ought to be bottled and fed intravenously to every single patient of the National Health Service.

  ‘Gosh, you look down,’ Marianne said, approvingly, from the doorway.

  He turned his head and waved at her. ‘Never been more miserable,’ he said. ‘Can’t you see?’

  She held out the phone in her hand. She said, smiling, ‘Call for you.’

  He swung himself upright. ‘For me? On your phone?’

  Marianne made a slight face.

  ‘It’s brother John. He wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Yikes.’

  Marianne put the phone to her ear. She said, ‘I’ve found him, John. Hard at work on the sofa. I’ll hand you over.’

  Edward took the phone and held it gingerly against his head. ‘John?’

  The other end of the line, John Dashwood sounded very grave.

  ‘I imagine, Edward, it’s a bit late for recriminations—’

  ‘Much too late,’ Edward said cheerfully, ‘and completely pointless, as I have never, ever, in my whole life been so—’

  ‘Edward,’ John Dashwood said majestically.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your mother is heartbroken. Your sister is feeling, naturally, completely betrayed. It is, in fact, astonishing that either of them are still functioning, let alone as well as they are.’

  Edward looked back at the spider. ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘I would have hoped, Edward, for a much more concerned response. Your mother, your sister—’

  ‘Sorry, John,’ Edward said, ‘but you should be ringing Robert, not me.’

  John Dashwood took a steadying breath. He said, ‘Do you realise, Edward, that your mother has not actually mentioned your name since this whole disgraceful business began?’

  Edward aimed an imaginary gun at the spider and fired. He said, with one eye shut, ‘No change there, then.’

  John Dashwood sounded outraged. ‘Edward!’

  Edward said nothing. He got up and stood looking out of the window. Soon, Elinor’s car would come into view.

  ‘Are you still there?’ John Dashwood said.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Will you please listen to me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Your sister and I – Fanny and I – think you could very easily do something to ease the situation. Your own, as well as your mother’s.’

  ‘Which is?’ Edward said guardedly.

  ‘You should write to her. You should write and say how sorry you are for upsetting her.’

  ‘Why?’ Edward demanded.

  ‘Because she wants nothing so much as for her children to be happy. Because she has been badly wounded by her sons’ conduct just recently.’

  Edward ran his hand through his hair. He said incredulously, ‘Are you saying I should write to my mother and say sorry for Robert?’

  ‘Well, it would be very much to your advantage—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Edward—’

  ‘No. Absolutely not. Never. I wish I hadn’t had all that nonsense with Lucy, but I am so certain, so certain about Elinor that I don’t give one single stuff about what any of you think. I’m not sorry. I’m not humble. I might talk to Mother about all this, one day, if she’ll ever listen, but I absolutely refuse to write a letter that I don’t mean and for something I haven’t done. Right?’

  John said stiffly, ‘You are making a big mistake.’

  ‘Not as big as my mother’s!’ Edward shouted.

  There was silence. Then John said, with elaborate dignity, ‘I shall go and convey this to your sister.’

  ‘You do that,’ Edward said rudely. ‘How does it feel to be pussy-whipped by two women in your life?’

  There was shocked silence at the other end of the line. An orange car was creeping along the valley floor, and Edward felt his heart lift in his chest, like a bird.

  ‘Bye,’ he said, into the phone, carelessly, ‘bye,’ and tossed it on to the dented cushions of the sofa.

  Marianne was sitting on the ridge above the valley where Allenham lay. She was sitting upright, her hands round her knees, and a yard away, Bill Brandon lay on his elbow in the grass and watched her. Her hair was loose down her back and, every so often, a breath of breeze lifted a strand or two and he watched them float and then settle again.

  She was not, he observed, looking tense or strained. She was gazing down at the old house, at its eccentric Tudor chimneys and neat hedge-partitioned gardens, and her expression was one of dreamy half-interest, rather than one of any intensity. It was strangely comfortable, being up there with her, in silence, and he found he was in no hurry to break it, or to know what she was thinking as she looked down, not just on a place she knew, but a place she had hoped to know so much better.

  It had, after all, been astonishing to him that she should ask him to walk with her at all. Of course, Belle didn’t want her going anywhere alone for the moment, and he had been conveniently lounging about in the garden, ostensibly waiting for Edward, when Marianne had come right up to him, and looked straight at him, and said she needed to go and have a look at Allenham, and would he go with her?

  They’d climbed up, companionably enough, through the woods, across the lane and he’d made her, without fuss, stop to catch her breath before they set out across the ridge itself. He’d offered to carry the sweater she’d taken off, and she’d said, ‘No,’ and he’d calmly said, ‘Don’t be silly,’ and taken it, and she’d turned to him, laughing, and let him. And now here they were, on the rough, tussocky grass high above Allenham, in easy silence, a yard apart. Only a yard, Bill thought, but it’s a distance. And I’ve made it, because I am desperate not to push her. And, actually, it’s more than enough, it’s wonderful to lie here and watch her able to look down at that house without it distressing her. She’s not indifferent – that would be too much to hope for – but she’s not yearning, either.

  As if she’d read his thoughts. Marianne turned and smiled at him.

  She said, ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘Is it?’

  She nodded.

  He said, ‘Was it a test? To come back here?’

  She nodded again. ‘Sort of.’

  ‘And you passed?’

  She turned to look at him properly. Then she dropped her gaze to the turf. She said softly, ‘First love …’

  He let a beat fall, then he said, ‘Tell me about it.’

  She gave him a quick smile. ‘I don’t suppose there’ll ever be anything quite like it.’

  ‘No,’ he said hesitantly, ‘but that doesn’t mean it’s the best. Only that it’s unique in its own way.’

  ‘Because it’s the first—’

  ‘And one doesn’t know enough not to surrender oneself completely.’

  She said, not in a melancholy way, ‘I liked that quality.’

  ‘Me too.’

>   She glanced at him. ‘Did you?’

  He plucked a buttercup and twirled it. He said ruefully, ‘I wanted to drown in what I was feeling.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I didn’t want to know what she was like. In fact, I wanted not to know. I just wanted what I believed, and to feel.’

  ‘Wow,’ Marianne said respectfully.

  He smiled at her. ‘And you?’

  ‘Just like you,’ she said.

  ‘So perhaps,’ he said gently, ‘we didn’t get it so wrong. We didn’t deliberately choose the wrong people, because almost anyone would have done, to feed the passion.’ He looked across at her and winked. ‘At least we chose beautiful people.’

  She edged a bit closer to him across the turf. She said, ‘Elinor told me that Wills said I didn’t mistake him. He did mean it. He does.’

  Bill looked at her. He said steadily, ‘Eliza knew she’d have been a different person with a better life with me.’

  Marianne said, ‘Could you have lived with her?’

  ‘I’d have tried.’

  ‘Me too. And it would have half killed me.’

  ‘Yes. Sacrifice is only exciting at the beginning.’

  She reached forward and took the buttercup out of his hand. She said, ‘I think I’m only beginning.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘To learn that there is more to a good life than … I can’t say it.’

  ‘A good life,’ he said, stating it.

  ‘Yes. You live a good life.’

  He looked at her seriously. He said, ‘It could be.’

  She looked away. She said, ‘I know.’

  He got to his feet and held a hand down to her.

  ‘Up you get. Time to go home.’

  ‘Bill—’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No more. Not now.’

  She leaned forward and threaded the buttercup into the top buttonhole of his shirt. Then she reached up and kissed him, quickly and lightly.

  ‘I’ve been so happy with you today,’ she said.

  19

  Mrs Ferrars’s flat in Mayfair had not been touched, decoratively speaking, for thirty years. Climbing up the building’s common staircase, Edward was transported back to his eight-year-old self, trudging up those same stairs on the same green trellis-patterned carpet between walls dotted with the same dim little flower prints in gilt frames, and feeling an apprehension and a reluctance that time had done nothing to diminish. When he pressed the brass doorbell outside the flat, he couldn’t help sighing. He had spent a great deal of his childhood sighing, one way or another. But the last few weeks had introduced him to a completely new kind of sighing, that resulting from an excess of incredulous happiness, which was the kind, he thought, listening to his mother’s heels tapping their way along the parquet floor inside the flat, he must arm himself with now.