It is strange. When I was thirteen and Marianne first met John Willoughby, I was rather jealous—or envious, rather, that I was not yet old enough to marry him myself. He seemed so dashing and handsome and charming in every way; I wanted nothing but to grow up and meet a man exactly like him. But now—
It is not just that my opinion of him is coloured by what I now know of his true character. At least, I do not think it is only that. Willoughby is still very attractive, without question. Every woman at the table seemed to lean unconsciously toward him whenever he spoke, drawn by his charismatic manners and winning smile. That is just it. He is so very charming—so very self-confident and so much aware of his own charm—that I kept halfway expecting the chairs, table linens, and dishes of creamed root vegetables to start swaying towards him, drawn by his magnetism, as well.
But at any rate, the reason I was so free to observe Willoughby and Marianne was that for nearly the whole of the meal, my own dinner companions provided me with absolutely nothing in the way of conversation. I was seated between two gentlemen whom I had never met before.
Our hostess Mrs. Rushworth—who is middle-aged and kindly and would give even Mrs. Jennings stern competition in terms of acting as a matchmaker for everyone she knows—whispered to me at the start of the evening, “I arranged the seating that way on purpose, my dear, since Mr. Chalmers and M. de Courtenay are the only two single gentlemen in the room, and you are the only unmarried young woman.”
I actually like Mrs. Rushworth—as I like Mrs. Jennings. But before the end of the soup course I had more or less decided that I would have preferred to be served a dinner of rusty nails and broken glass than ever accept a similar favour from her again.
Mr. Clarence Chalmers, who is perhaps twenty-four or -five, is staying in the neighbourhood while visiting an elderly uncle. He has ginger-coloured hair, pale blue eyes, and is immensely stout; after dinner while we were playing at cards in the drawing room, he filled Mrs. Rushworth’s largest armchair as though he had been poured into it and would have to have it sawed away when he wished to get up.
Not that stoutness is a fault I would ordinarily hold against anyone. But in Mr. Chalmers’s case, it was augmented by the fact that despite its being a warm summer night, he was absolutely swathed in layers of clothing: two waistcoats—in addition to the flannel one he assured me he always wore against rheumatism—a heavy evening jacket of quilted velvet, and another long strip of flannel wrapped round his throat. Because, as he solemnly explained to me as the soup was being ladled out, “I coughed no fewer than three times this morning, and am taking every precaution against pneumonia.”
He had a complicated arrangement of little golden scales on the table before him, and insisted on weighing anything and everything that he put on his plate. He has apparently worked out some sort of weights-based system for deciding what will and will not upset his delicate digestion—which he explained to me in full over the soup and then the mutton that followed. He stopped only when I committed the grave error of offering him the dish of creamed peas that had been set before me. He looked at me in horror and said, “Good heavens, no, I never eat vegetables. They are most injurious to the lining of the stomach. I am certain that if I ate a single pea, I should not sleep a wink tonight.”
In a (vain) effort to turn the conversation, I said, “I understand that you are staying with your aunt in the neighbourhood. What is the name of her estate?”
“Dumbroke Park.” Mr. Chalmers spoke around a mouthful of mutton, dripping with gravy. For all his fussing with the scales, as soon as his food was weighed he began absolutely shovelling every bit into his mouth.
“Oh—I think I have seen it, when I have been out walking. It is only two or three miles from Delaford, I think,” I said. “A very pretty, old-fashioned place.”
Mr. Chalmers gave an exaggerated shudder. “My aunt is very old—infirm. I feel it my duty to pay her a yearly visit. But the house is dreadfully draughty and damp. It is an absolute recipe for rheumatism, I give you my word.”
By comparison, M. de Courtenay, who was seated to my left, was a scintillating conversationalist—in that up until the dessert course was served, he spoke only four words to me: “Please pass the salt.”
Mrs. Rushworth, in the same whispered conversation before dinner, informed me that M. Pierre de Courtenay has something of a tragic history. He was the youngest son of a French nobleman, and barely escaped the Terror eight years ago when he came to England as quite a young man. The rest of his family were not so lucky; according to Mrs. Rushworth, they all died on the guillotine.
Out of sheer desperation to contemplate something other than the lining of Mr. Chalmers’s stomach—or Willoughby’s flirting with Marianne—I turned and glanced occasionally at M. de Courtenay as we ate. He is now a year or two under thirty, which would have made him not quite twenty at the time of his escape from France, and very handsome in a dark, brooding way. He has dark brown hair swept back from a high, intelligent brow, square-cut features, and the sort of deep-set eyes that in sentimental novels are usually described as ‘smouldering.’
He has a thin scar that runs across one cheek, giving him a rather dashing, piratical air. Though his good looks were rather spoiled by his expression: a black scowl that made Mr. Palmer’s habitual look of bad-temper seem a positive ray of sunshine by comparison.
Aside from his request for salt, he entirely ignored me—and the entire rest of the table—throughout the course of the meal. As candied fruits and small bowls of nuts and oranges were being set out round the table, he must have caught me studying him, for he abruptly turned and fixed the full measure of the scowl on me.
“If you are wondering whether I received the scar at the hands of the Comité de Salut Public, the answer is no. It was a duelling accident when I was a boy.”
He spoke English very well indeed, with just the barest trace of an accent. Though that was of only secondary consideration to the look of something approaching loathing that he turned on me, coupled with the contemptuous twist of his lips as he spoke.
I felt my cheeks heat up—though with temper, not embarrassment. I do not so much mind if people decide not to like me after making my acquaintance. But to be disliked instantly, before I had spoken a word, was another matter altogether.
“Actually, no,” I said. “I was just trying to guess from your expression whether you were actively planning to murder someone by painful dismemberment—or whether you were only suffering from a bad toothache.”
I thought a brief flare of surprise might have tightened the edges of M. de Courtenay’s eyes—and perhaps even a twitch of amusement, as well. But then his scowl deepened, and he said, “You English girls are all the same—all thinking it so very romantic to meet a man who escaped from the kiss of la guillotine. All wishing to ask me questions so that you may have the pleasure of squealing in horror at my answers. Or hoping that I will take one look at you and fall hopelessly in love, so that you may minister to my burden of sorrow.”
Put like that, I suppose it must be rather trying for him—being expected to act as a living version of the tortured heroes in those same sentimental novels. And I did feel a pang of consciousness, because there was a time when I might well have been one of those girls.
M. de Courtenay went on, though, lowering his voice to a savage undertone. “Everyone tells me I must be so very grateful to the English for allowing me to reside in your great nation. That I ought to give thanks to le bon Dieu that I alone of all my family was carried safely to these shores.” His mouth twisted. “Do you know what I think of the English as a people? A lot of stupid, smug, self-satisfied cattle who have no notion of what it means to endure true hardship or suffer real pain.”
Despite my momentary feeling of sympathy, that made me lose my temper all over again. “But that is frightfully insulting to cows!” I burst out. “Just because they know how to be at peace and contented with their lot in life does not make them smug or self-satisfied in the
least.”
The moment the words left my mouth, I wished that I could call them back. M. de Courtenay’s words were of course every bit as unjust and insulting to Englishmen everywhere as they were to cattle. And yet somehow my instinctive response was to defend the cows first of all, and my own nation second.
It was precisely those sorts of remarks that earned me a reputation for being slightly peculiar when I was younger. And though I have mostly trained myself out of making them, they sometimes slip out before I can catch myself.
M. de Courtenay, however, stared at me a long moment, and then surprised me by starting to laugh—so much that he drew the attention of the rest of the table, and had to assure Mrs. Rushworth that everything was quite well.
When he was able to stop laughing, he said, “I beg your pardon, Miss—” He paused.
“Dashwood,” I supplied.
“Miss Dashwood,” he echoed with a slight half-bow. “I beg your pardon for doing you the injustice of thinking you just another typical English girl—which plainly, you are not.” His lips were still twitching. “I apologise for my bad manners and for the initial impression I must have made. If I promise that I will not malign any other innocent cattle, will you do me the very great favour of allowing me to start over and begin our acquaintance again?”
He was even more handsome when he smiled, the stiffness of his features relaxing and his eyes crinkling at the edges. “That depends,” I said. “Will you also give me your assurance that you were not in fact plotting to dismember anyone?”
M. de Courtenay’s lips twitched again. “No dismemberments,” he said gravely. “Poison, perhaps, but I assure you, nothing messier than that.”
We talked together all throughout the rest of the meal—and after dinner, besides.
Since the night was so warm, the party decided after the card games were over to take a stroll in the gardens outside. Everyone save Mrs. Palmer, who could not walk on account of her ankle. And Mr. Chalmers, of course, who huddled deeper into his heavy coat at the mere thought of polluting his lungs with night air.
M. de Courtenay and I walked together, down the rows of lilac bushes and sweet-smelling roses. He did speak to me a little of his life in France. Not of the revolution, but of visiting his grandfather’s winery in the south of France when he was a boy, and of attending the court at Versailles when he was sixteen.
If I had not been plagued by the persistent worry that Marianne was somewhere out in the garden alone with Willoughby, I would have enjoyed the time very much indeed.
In the end, we were interrupted by the arrival of Marianne herself. She looked rather flushed and breathless. But Mr. Willoughby was nowhere in sight.
“Are you ready to go, Margaret?” she asked. She gave M. de Courtenay an apologetic smile and explained that she felt rather tired—then asked, “Have you seen Mr. Palmer?”
“Mr. Palmer?” I looked about the moonlit garden in some surprise. “Surely he is not—”
But at that moment, another couple came around the corner of the path—and I saw that it was in fact Mr. Palmer, in company with Mrs. Willoughby, of all people. They were seated beside one another at dinner. But I should have thought strolling in a moonlit garden would be precisely the sort of activity from which Mr. Palmer would run screaming.
Though he did return to his usual self during the carriage ride home.
“Upon my word,” Charlotte was saying, “I did think Mrs. Willoughby monstrous pretty, and so very agreeable. I declare, I was quite determined to hate her, on account of the dreadful wrong she did you, Marianne, a few years ago.” In addition to being unable to use one word when she can use five instead, Charlotte also has absolutely no awareness of subjects that had better not be brought up.
It was too dark inside the carriage for me to make out Marianne’s expression clearly—which was probably fortunate for Charlotte, who rattled happily on, “But I declare, I could not dislike her after all, I thought her so very agreeable, and so smartly dressed. Mr. Palmer, did you not think her a very pretty woman, and charming, besides?”
Mr. Palmer was sitting nearest to the window and the carriage lamp, so that I could see his face. He pursed his lips into a thin line and said, “An utterly insipid woman—very stupid and ill bred.”
* * *
I had to break off writing just now and set this book aside; Marianne knocked at my door so that she might bid me goodnight. Or rather, ostensibly her purpose was to bid me goodnight. What she actually wanted was to perch on the edge of my bed and say, with an air of extreme casualness, “M. de Courtenay seemed very agreeable. And handsome, do you not think?”
I rolled my eyes at her. Unlike Elinor, Marianne never leaves anyone in the least doubt of how she is feeling, and she has never been good at dissembling. When we were children, our mother never had the slightest difficulty in determining that it was Marianne who had broken her favourite vase or eaten all the jam in the pot; she could tell immediately just by looking at Marianne’s face.
“Very agreeable,” I said. “And we must have talked together for nearly half an hour! If that is not cause for picking out teaspoon patterns and ordering wedding china, I do not know what is.”
Marianne laughed and held up her hands in surrender. “All right! I shall suppress all my instincts to play the overbearing, matchmaking elder sister.” She made a face at me as she pressed a hand to her middle. “Though considering everything else I have to endure this summer, I do think you might at least provide me with some vicarious enjoyment. It is practically your sisterly duty.”
I laughed, too. Then hesitated—wondering whether I ought to speak. Finally, I said, “Marianne? Did you know of Willoughby’s arrival in the neighbourhood? Before we met with him the other day, I mean?”
“Willoughby.” Marianne’s brow clouded, briefly—but she continued without any change of tone, and without appearing to hesitate before speaking at all. “Yes, I did know he was come into this part of the world. I chanced to meet him a week or two ago, soon after he had first arrived. We met in the road just beyond Delaford—I was out for a drive, and he was on horseback.”
“And you do not … you do not mind?” I ventured to ask. “I should have thought—”
“That I would threaten to proclaim his villainy to the world if he did not at once leave the neighbourhood and never blight my vision with his presence again?” Marianne finished for me. One corner of her mouth lifted in a slightly wry smile.
She let out a breath, absently tracing the embroidery on the bed’s counterpane with one finger. “I suppose I might have done—once. But that was years ago. Now—” She sighed again, unconsciously resting her hand on the slight swell of the unborn child. “He and his wife will expect to mix with the other families in the neighbourhood, at dinner parties like the one tonight. It would only cause talk—perhaps even a scandal—if I were to slight him publicly. And I cannot speak to anyone of his past crimes without also revealing more of my past than I would like to—not that I care particularly for myself what people think of me. But I will not expose Christopher to such gossip. And there are Eliza and Joanna to consider. Their situation would be very much worse if it were publicly known that Joanna’s father was actually living within five miles of here.” She moved her shoulders dismissively. “Compared to the misery that might be inflicted by exposing him, being civil to Willoughby is by far the lesser of evils.”
It was all perfectly true, perfectly considered and sensible what she said—and yet at the same time, I could not shake the feeling that it was all, all wrong. Marianne is not—she never has been—good at being civil and polite to anyone she dislikes, any more than she has been at subtlety.
I have thought that Marianne would grind her teeth into a powder with the effort she made nightly to sit through an evening of Mr. Palmer calling every dish on the supper table ‘undercooked’, ‘overdone’ or ‘indigestible’—and his wife laughing heartily and declaring, “Ah, my love, you are being so very rude!”
/> Before I could ask anything further, though, Marianne pressed a hand to her middle. “Oh!”
“What is it?” I was instantly alarmed. “Is something wrong?”
“No, no, nothing like that.” Marianne shook her head. “The baby kicked me, that is all.” She smiled. “I have only just started to be able to feel when he moves. I haven’t gotten used to it yet. Here—do you want to see if you can feel it, too? He’s getting very strong.” She took my hand and placed it on her slightly rounded stomach.
“He?” I raised my eyebrows.
Marianne shrugged, smiling again. “I have to think of the child as something—it seems rude to say ‘it’ all the time. And besides, it just … feels like a boy, somehow.”
We were both quiet, and a moment later, I felt it—a tiny, faint tap against the palm of my hand. “But that is … amazing,” I said.
It was quite strange. When I was younger, I spent a good deal of time wishing that I could dress and dance and have exciting secrets just as Marianne did. But I had never felt awed by her before, as I did at that moment.
Marianne only nodded. There was an expression I had never seen in her eyes before—as though she were listening to some faint thread of music, coming from a long way off. No one, to judge by her looks, would have thought that John Willoughby was in her thoughts at all.
Saturday 5 June 1802
No progress, still, with Star. But what happened today was actually more of a shock than any advancement with Star would have been. I still cannot entirely believe it is true.
I got up and as usual went out to the north pasture before breakfast. I took some sugar lumps in my pocket, to see whether I might tempt her with those. I felt slightly guilty for the extravagance—but since I never take sugar in my tea in any case, I persuaded my conscience that I was only giving Star my share of the household supply.
Not that it did me any good. Star stood trembling, her legs planted, as I moved slowly towards her, sugar on the palm of my hand. I kept my gaze carefully averted, kept my shoulders at a sideways angle … but that did not help, either. The moment I crossed some invisible line—it seems to be between ten and fifteen feet from her—she squealed, reared—and then bolted to the far end of the pasture, jogging in nervous circles and shaking her head.
Margaret Dashwood's Diary Page 4