Margaret Dashwood's Diary

by Elliott, Anna

  I felt my muscles go limp with relief.

  The cart and horses continued their careening path down the village main street, though as I watched, the driver at last managed to drag them to a rearing halt. He vaulted down from the cart almost at once, his face red with fury.

  “Ye poxy nag!” He brandished his whip at the nearer of the two horses. “I’ll beat the devilment out of ye!”

  Up until that moment—insofar as I had spared a thought for him at all—I had been sorry for the driver of the cart, whom I assumed must have suffered as bad a fright as we had ourselves. As the man raised his whip, though, I felt something hot and furious kindle under my ribcage and hiss like fire through my veins.

  One of the horses—the one he had not yet threatened—seemed to have got over the worst of its panic. It stood, shivering and sweating and shifting its weight uneasily, but showed no impulse to bolt again.

  As the driver approached the other animal, whip upraised, it let out a sharp squeal and reared up, pawing the air, its ears flat back. “I’ll flay your miserable hide,” the man growled.

  I confess that I did not stop to think. I darted forward and seized hold of the man’s arm before he could bring the whip down across the horse’s back. The tip of the whip swung outwards and caught me on the cheek, leaving a sting—but I was far too angry to care.

  “Stop it!” I wanted to shout, but kept my voice to an angry hiss on account of the horses. “Are you an utter lackwit, trying to frighten a panicked animal even more?”

  Even before Marianne married Colonel Brandon, she and our mother and I spent nearly half of our time with Elinor at the parsonage, so that I know the Delaford neighbourhood and its inhabitants well. I could not recall ever having seen this man, though. He was short—confronting him, we were more or less of an even height—but barrel-chested and with a heavy paunch hanging over the belt of his worn leather breeches. His face was square, with an underhung jaw rather like a bulldog, and I thought he looked to be about fifty, with skin that would be ruddy even when it wasn’t flushed with rage—and an odd network of broken veins almost like a spider’s web that covered his cheeks and nose.

  His eyes—dark and slightly bloodshot—narrowed as he shook off my grip on his arm, and he ground out, “Get ye gone, girl. You’re like to get yourself hurt if you go sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

  If I had met him alone, in a dark, deserted country lane, I might have been frightened of him. But we were in the middle of the village square in broad daylight—and surrounded by a growing crowd of interested onlookers, besides. And I was still much too furious for any fear to creep in. “No,” I snapped. “You are likely to get yourself hurt—killed, even—if you go on terrorising and abusing an already frightened animal into bolting again. Which, frankly, would grieve me not at all. But it would be a shame if your horses broke free and trampled anyone else.”

  The man’s face darkened. “And just who do ye think ye are, ye pesky baggage—trying to tell me how to treat me own horses?” he demanded. His voice rose on the last words, and he made a brief movement as though about to brandish the whip at me. The horse nearest him whinnied and reared up again, setting the harness jangling.

  “She is my sister.” Marianne’s cool voice broke in before I could reply. Turning, I found her standing at my elbow—looking a little pale, still, her bonnet askew and her pretty gown covered in dust and bits of dried grass. But she met the man’s furious gaze with a long, level look.

  Plainly he was still angry—the muscles bulged in his jaw, and his hands clenched on the handle of the whip. But neither was he quite so far gone as to risk antagonising Colonel Brandon’s wife, the lady of the manor house and the patroness of Delaford village.

  His eyes dropped to the ground, he touched his forelock and muttered, sullenly, “Beggin’ yer pardon, Mrs. Brandon, ma’am.”

  I could see that Marianne was angry, as well. But she said, only, “Very well, Mr. Merryman. Be on your way, then.”

  “Wait,” I said. The horse nearer to me was still side-stepping nervously, its ears back and its head thrown up.

  I did not know this animal at all. But I was afraid it really would only try to bolt again if it were goaded once more into pulling the cart—and the street was crowded, both with those who had drawn near to witness the drama and with mere passersby and shoppers, as well.

  I stepped forward, pushing the quiver of nervousness in my chest far, far back, forcing my racing pulse to slow. “There now, easy, boy,” I murmured, as I inched my way closer—close enough that I could catch hold of the horse’s bridle.

  The horse tried to jerk its head away, but I held on tight—making sure to keep my eyes averted, my shoulders turned at a sideways angle rather than facing the animal straight on. “Easy, boy. Easy.” The horse stamped and blew out a snort, but did not rear or try to jerk away again. So I reached up to touch its neck, moving my fingers in slow, comforting circles over the taut muscles. “It is all right. There, now.”

  I felt the horse slowly relax, and it lowered its head to nuzzle my shoulder and blow another gusty breath into my ear. “I think he will behave, now.” I released the horse’s bridle and stepped back.

  It was probably fortunate that I did not expect any thanks from the driver. He gave me a baleful glare that would have seen me dead and six feet underground in the village churchyard, if looks had the power to do harm. He muttered something under his breath in the general direction of Marianne. Then he snatched up the reins and clambered back up onto the seat.

  The cart rolled away with a metallic clatter. Seen up close, it seemed to be filled with an array of iron and copper cooking pots and pans, all packed in loose straw.

  Marianne watched him drive off, then turned to me with a look of exasperation. “What on earth possessed you, Margaret, to interfere in such a way? Half the village must have seen the spectacle you made—and the other half will be hearing about it before dinner time! You do realise that the last time I went on a duty-visit to Fanny and John at Norland, people in the neighbourhood were still talking about the incident of your bringing a duckling into church? You will acquire a reputation as an absolute eccentric if you keep on this way. Miss Margaret Dashwood, who breaks engagements and prefers the company of horses to men.”

  I suppose it is lucky that this diary is intended for my own eyes only—because anyone reading it would form a very unfair—not to mention inaccurate—estimation of Marianne’s character. Marianne is not in fact bad-tempered or disagreeable or ungenerous or spiteful—indeed, quite the reverse. I do love Marianne—she is my sister, after all. But I actually like her, too, now that we are all of us grown up. As a general rule, Marianne is open-natured, affectionate, kind, and generous to a fault. Anyone familiar with all she has done in the last year for Eliza Williams could scarcely doubt that.

  Besides which, her husband is away, risking his life in service to the Crown. And she herself had very nearly just been killed; I could scarcely start a quarrel with her just then.

  I therefore counted to ten inside my head and heroically refrained from saying that horses are in fact preferable company to most men; horses do not lie or cheat … or set up dishonest tests of one’s affections. Nor did I point out that the incident with the baby duckling occurred when I was barely eight, and that if people in Sussex are still talking about it, then clearly they are in dire need of some new fodder for gossip.

  Instead I gestured to the rapidly disappearing carriage and asked, “That man—who is he?”

  “Mr. Bartholomew Merryman,” Marianne said. “He is an itinerant metal vendor—he comes through about once every two months or so, selling cookware, belt buckles, shoe buckles, that sort of thing.”

  “Merry-man?” I repeated, feeling my eyebrows rise.

  “Yes, I know. Surely as ill-suited a name for him as one could imagine,” Marianne said. She touched my arm, her expression softening. “Come along, Margaret. I do not like the way he treats his animals, eith
er. But there is nothing we can do.”

  I realised that I was looking down the street after him and grinding my teeth together. I did not manage to make my fingers unclench, but I relaxed my jaw enough to say, “He will kill them one day, if he keeps on treating them so. Did you see the lash marks on the poor beasts’ backs?”

  Marianne sighed. “I know. But they are his own horses, and unfortunately he can do with them as he likes.”

  I started to turn away with her—then asked abruptly, “Does he have any other horses that you know of? Has he lost one recently?”

  I had, with a jolt that turned my stomach, recollected Star—the similar scars on her back. And I was thinking that Mr. Bartholomew Merryman seemed as likely a candidate as I had yet come across for the owner responsible for her abuse.

  Marianne shook her head, though. “I should not think so,” she said. “At least, I have never seen him with any other horses but those two poor old bays. I doubt he could afford the upkeep and feed another horse would require, either. His cart and his clothes do not give the impression that business is at all prosperous.”

  That was true enough. I exhaled and turned back the way we had come—and forgot Mr. Merryman entirely. Elinor stood on the opposite side of the road beside a man—the same dark-haired man who had rescued Marianne. And as I caught sight of his face, I felt my jaw drop and wondered momentarily whether fright or anger or both had produced some sort of strange hallucination.

  He greeted me very cordially—saying something about how he had always known I would turn out a beauty, in a way that managed to be charming without being ingratiating or unctuous. The majority of his attention, though, was for Marianne. “Are you quite certain that you are not injured? You are still looking terribly pale.”

  Marianne did look rather pale and sickly, still. I managed to stifle my instinctive reply that it was probably due to the shock of seeing him again rather than anything to do with the horses.

  Though Marianne accepted with thanks his kind offer to drive her back to Delaford in his curricle. There were only two seats, which meant that Elinor and I could not accompany them—for which he apologised with what seemed sincere regret. But then he always did have the gift of appearing disarmingly sincere.

  A part of me—considering his treatment of both Marianne and Eliza Williams—had been rather hoping that he might have grown bald or fat—or both, in the years since last I saw him. But he has not. Save for the gathering of a few lines about his eyes, he looks exactly the same at nearly thirty as he did at five-and-twenty: tall and with a lean, broad-shouldered, pugilist’s build. And extremely handsome, with strong, chiseled features and melting dark eyes, and hair that tumbles over his brow.

  He helped Marianne into the curricle seat, got up beside her, and then drove off. Glancing at Elinor, I saw that she looked as stunned as I felt.

  She was the first to break the silence. “But that was—”

  “I know,” I said. “That was John—

  Later

  I suppose that was a narrative break worthy of any chapter ending in a gothic tale of horror. But I did not actually stop writing there for the sake of heightened drama; Marianne came into the room to remind me that dinner would be served soon, and I ought to be going up to dress.

  Dinner is over now, and I am in my bedroom—or rather, the room I am occupying at Delaford House. It is very grand. All of Delaford House is very grand, in a stately, old-fashioned way. The wardrobe in my room is black with age and so massive it would probably require three men to lift—assuming anyone should be so impertinent as to move it from the spot where it has clearly stood for a hundred years or more.

  There is an old family legend that one of Colonel Brandon’s ancestors—a several-times-great-grandmother, I think—was courted and greatly admired by King Henry the 8th during the final years of his reign. Supposedly, that is where the portrait of the late king that hangs over the mantelpiece in my bedroom comes from—Henry had it commissioned and sent as a gift to his lady love.

  Though to be honest, it always seems to me more likely to have frightened off the poor woman than to have gained her affections. To put it mildly, it is not a flattering image of Henry. He looks jowly and ill and extremely fat—and he has the most revolting expression on his face. I suppose the portrait artist—or the king—may have meant it for a seductive smile, but it comes across as more of an offensive leer.

  Though perhaps none of that matters—or rather mattered—when you were the King of England. Jowly, fat, leering and all, perhaps the several-times-great-grandmother had no choice but to be delighted with his advances.

  But I am wandering from the point. To continue, the man who rescued Marianne was John Willoughby—who five years ago caused Marianne to fall in love with him, and then broke her heart by marrying another woman for her money.

  By common consent, Elinor and I turned in at the parsonage gate, so that we might talk over what had occurred. Not that either of us had very much to say; neither of us could imagine how Willoughby could possibly have come to be in this part of the world.

  As it happened, though, we had no chance for private conversation. As soon as we entered the parsonage, Elinor’s maid appeared to tell us that Mrs. Jennings had called and was waiting for us in the parlour.

  For the second time in scarcely an hour, I felt myself staring with blank surprise—feeling as though Fate must have a very unpleasant sense of humour indeed.

  But of course it was not Fate. Not unless Fate is responsible for Mrs. Jennings’s particular combination of insatiable curiosity and single-minded determination.

  Mrs. Jennings is the mother-in-law of Sir John Middleton, who is my mother’s cousin and who offered us Barton Cottage to live in when my father died. In character, Mrs. Jennings is—

  I have been staring at this page for what must be nearly ten minutes, trying to think of a description of Mrs. Jennings that is just, fair, and not biased by the fact that it was she who introduced me to Aubrey.

  Very well. Mrs. Jennings has a good heart—a truly good heart. She is affectionate and kind and completely without malice, ready to see the good in everyone. Unfortunately, she is also not content until she knows every hidden, secret detail of everyone else’s life. And since she has already married off her own two daughters, she is determined to find a husband for every unmarried girl in her circle of acquaintance. Which is chiefly me, since both my sisters are married now.

  At any rate, Mrs. Jennings came bustling forward to heartily embrace Elinor and me as we entered the parlour. She was already talking in full spate; the frills on her lace-trimmed cap fairly quivered with the strength of her indignation. “I declare, Miss Margaret, this is dreadful news. I had such hopes for our young Mr. Neville. You may not be quite so pretty as your sister Marianne—or so accomplished as dear Elinor, here. But you are a very winsome girl for all that—and Mr. Neville seemed so very much taken with you. Why, he did not even mind your being so peculiar and forever tramping about collecting snakes and lizards and what-not to set down in your drawing books. Not that you do not sketch them very nicely, my dear, but what is the trouble with sketching flowers and a nice pretty landscape, that is what I say. Something that would not make your skin crawl to hang on the wall.”

  I could not speak. Not because I was especially offended by Mrs. Jennings’s unflattering comparison of my sisters’ charms with mine. It is scarcely as though I have never heard such statements before; I have done, practically ever since I can recall.

  I managed at least to close my mouth, which had still been open with astonishment.

  “I could not believe my ears when I heard from my maid Rose that you had left the neighbourhood,” Mrs. Jennings went on. “ ‘What, quit the neighbourhood?’ I said to her. ‘I do not believe it, not with Mr. Neville here.’ For I never saw a man so in love as he was with you, I declare. But when I came up to call on your mother, what do I find but that the whole story is true? You gone away into Dorsetshire and your engage
ment broken. Though to be sure, I could not get a proper answer from your mother about what the trouble had been between you. So of course, nothing would do but that I hear the story from your own lips. And since my Charlotte is staying in the very same house that you have run away to—well, what could be better than that I should come to Delaford myself? And here I am,” Mrs. Jennings finished triumphantly. “I can check in on Charlotte and see how she does, and at the same time, get the full story from you.” She settled herself more firmly into her chair, plainly determined not to budge until she had questioned me to her complete satisfaction. “Now, my dear. Are you perfectly sure—”

  But no. On second thoughts, I am going to spare myself the fissures that will appear in my teeth if I have to grit my jaw through writing down the—extremely voluble—whole of what Mrs. Jennings said on the subject of my having put an end to our betrothal.

  I truly am fond of Mrs. Jennings. And—when it is not directed at me—I even have a sneaking sympathy for her insatiable curiosity. When I was small, my sisters were forever leaving me out of their grown-up secrets—and I was forever begging them to tell me. Or, when I could not persuade them by honourable means—or was righteously angry because they had loftily informed me that I was ‘too young to understand’—I would resort to the dishonourable means of spying and eavesdropping to try to learn whatever it was they were whispering about.

  I remember once falling off a drainpipe that I had shinnied up in hopes that I might overhear through the window what Elinor and Marianne were speaking of. And my mother sighed as she rubbed arnica on my sprained wrist and told me that she suspected curiosity of being my besetting sin.

  However, I admit that I was heartily relieved when it turned out that Mrs. Jennings can stay only two nights here at Delaford; she is expected in Bath to stay with an old friend.

  Finally, she wound down on the topic of Aubrey and me, and said with a change of subject, “But here I am rattling on, when I have the most shocking news for you both.”