Margaret, who did recall some of the confusion and despair that had followed the sudden departure of Willoughby that summer, and had learnt more about it later, asked, “And you fear that a similar situation may be developing again? Surely, you cannot believe that Marianne will allow herself to be deceived twice—by the same man?” She was incredulous, but Elinor, who had by then composed herself and dried her tears, said, “That is precisely what I fear, because while Marianne is unlikely to be deceived by some stranger of whom she knows little, she is clearly more vulnerable with Willoughby—only because she believes she knows him well. And she will make allowance for any of his misdemeanours because she sees in him a man after her own heart—well read, passionate, ready to match all her enthusiasms. Oh Margaret, I am so afraid for her, I shall have to go to Barton Park and see Mama and ask her to come back to Delaford.”
Margaret was apprehensive. “Do you suppose she will? How will she explain her knowledge of this? Will it not make Marianne very angry were she to discover that you had known of her meeting with Willoughby and had told Mama about it?”
Elinor tried to think fast enough to formulate an answer. “She need not know—Mama can simply return and stay with her until Colonel Brandon returns from Ireland; she can make some excuse, say she is tired with looking after Mrs Jennings and running the household at Barton Park, or that she needs some company herself… no matter, I will think of something.”
“Will Mama agree to come?” asked Margaret.
“She must—there is no one else whom Marianne trusts.” Elinor was determined. “At least if Mama is staying with her, Willoughby will not be able to call on her with impunity.”
Margaret was sceptical. “You cannot believe that he intends to call on her at the manor house?” But Elinor had no doubts. “Why else do you suppose she was up and about filling vases with flowers and opening up the main drawing room—while Colonel Brandon is away? She did not mention that any other visitors were expected, so it can only be that she expects Willoughby to call.”
“But would he dare?” asked Margaret, still dubious, to which her sister replied, “Margaret, he is the type of man who would dare anything if he thought it was in his interest. Doubtless he is aware that Colonel Brandon is away in Ireland and he is quite safe to call—if he can find some excuse. If the Percevals are friends of his, he may use them; truly I do not put it past him. As we have seen before, he can be reckless and quite devoid of any decorum, and now, estranged from his wife, he has nothing to lose.”
Margaret could see that Elinor was determined to do something about the situation she saw developing around their sister, and it seemed to her that nothing she could say was going to change that. She was leaving the following day and would be away from England for four weeks; it was, she thought, far better that she leave her sister to make her decision and act as she thought fit. But even as she decided that ’twere best not to press the matter further, she was far from confident that Elinor’s plan to involve their mother would succeed.
It was a most unsatisfactory way to leave, and yet there was little Margaret could do to affect the course that either of her sisters would follow in the days and weeks to come.
Chapter Ten
When Elinor and Margaret parted on Tuesday, both sisters seemed reluctant to speak of Marianne’s predicament, since neither could predict how matters would turn out.
Margaret’s mind turned now to the preparations she must make for her departure for France; her friend Claire had promised to have most of their arrangements in place, so she had only her personal packing to do. She looked forward to their journey with the greatest anticipation.
Elinor, on the other hand, faced a far less pleasurable prospect; having to visit her mother and persuade her of the urgent need to return with her to Delaford, whilst not revealing all she knew about Marianne’s situation, was daunting indeed. Besides that, what explanation would she give her husband? Should she tell him about Marianne’s excursion to Glastonbury? Would he not wonder why she had not spoken earlier? Unaccustomed to concealment, yet uncomfortable with the prospect of detailing the events of the last week to her husband, lest he should question her involvement, she was at a loss as to what to do.
The decision to appeal to her mother had been born of a sense of desperation, a feeling that Marianne must not be let down again by those whose duty it was to protect her. Recollections of what had occurred in the past, the manner in which Mrs Dashwood had initially argued against the need to question Marianne and Willoughby about their possible engagement and then dismissed Elinor’s fears that there appeared to be no firm intention on his part, returned to haunt her as she considered the implications of Marianne’s silence.
That her sister had found it necessary to conceal the fact that Willoughby had been present, that he had been sufficiently confident of acceptance to offer his services to the Percevals to transport their stranded guests, and that Marianne had accepted his help but could not bring herself to reveal this to her sisters, all pointed to a circumstance reminiscent of the days when they had first met Willoughby. He had courted Marianne assiduously, cultivating all her tastes, promoting her enthusiasms, and soliciting the favour of her family, yet he had said not one word to confirm his intentions, leaving Marianne betrayed and humiliated, and her family the object of ridicule and pity.
Determined that it must not happen again, Elinor went to see her friend Mrs King, in whom she confided some of her fears. That Mrs King knew something of Marianne’s unhappy affair, which fact Elinor had earlier regarded as an unfortunate consequence of gossip in the village, proved now to be quite providential. It meant that she could account for her concerns to her friend without the need for extensive explanations.
She found Mrs King occupied in her garden, cutting back the last of her summer blooms and bemoaning the fact that her roses had not done as well this season. Delighted to see her friend, she greeted Elinor and invited her indoors to take tea. As Elinor gave a brief account of the situation, Mrs King appeared as deeply concerned as she was. However, being of a particularly practical disposition, Mrs King was inclined to advise some caution.
“Elinor, before you rush to take any action, which may cause your mother considerable anxiety and even lead to a possible rift between you and your sister, let me ask if you are certain that this man, Mr Willoughby, after some seven or eight years, still entertains the same feelings he claimed he had for your sister. I ask only because one needs to remember that after so many years have passed, during which time they have both been married, too, there is the likelihood that there may have been some diminution of his ardour. Can you be sure that he will endeavour to pursue her as he did before?”
Elinor answered her carefully, but with conviction. “Helen, you are quite right to ask, and I agree I must be cautious, but while I cannot say with any certainty that Willoughby’s feelings for Marianne are as sincere or as deep as he claimed at the time, I do know that his resentment against Colonel Brandon was great, and those feelings are unlikely to have diminished over the years. They have an earlier history of grievances between them, too, which had nothing to do with my sister. When Marianne accepted Colonel Brandon’s offer of marriage, Willoughby was both bitter and furious. He came to see me and made his hatred of Colonel Brandon very plain indeed.”
“Do you believe then that quite apart from his feelings for your sister, he may be motivated by a desire for revenge, by trying to take her away from Colonel Brandon?” Mrs King’s countenance was very grave and Elinor’s answer did nothing to assuage her anxiety.
“I cannot say if he wants to ‘take her away’ as you suggest, and I do not think even Marianne will be silly enough to countenance anything so foolish, but I do believe Willoughby is both selfish and opportunistic, and if he could engage my sister in what she may deem to be a harmless friendship, but will inevitably be seen as a secret liaison between them, it will ruin her reputation, des
troy her marriage, and humiliate Colonel Brandon. I can rate it no higher, but that will certainly be sweet revenge for Willoughby.” Try as she might, Elinor could not restrain her tears, and Mrs King decided that the situation was serious enough to warrant firm action.
Consoling her friend, she said, “And do you suppose that your mother, if she comes to Delaford, will be able to prevent this from happening? What does Mr Ferrars say? Does he agree?”
Elinor had then to reveal, with some degree of embarrassment, that she had not told her husband all of the details and he was unaware of her plan to go to Barton Park. “Edward has been very busy with parish work and the petitions concerning the abolition of slavery; I have not had the heart to trouble him with this. Moreover, he does not know Willoughby as I do and is unlikely to think that my sister could be drawn back into an association with him. Edward rarely speaks ill of anyone and will not believe the danger that she is in. I had hoped to convince my mother and bring her back to Delaford, making some plausible excuse so she could spend some time with Marianne. They have always been close,” she explained, wondering even as she spoke, whether her friend would consider her foolish for worrying as she did. But Mrs King did not. A kind and sensible woman, she took Elinor’s concerns quite seriously and agreed to help her.
“Leave it to me, Elinor, I shall think of a plan. Meanwhile, say nothing to your sister or your mother. Let us hope it may not be necessary, but if it is, we will go to Barton Park, you and I.”
***
On the following day, an invitation arrived at the parsonage asking Edward and Elinor to dinner with Dr and Mrs Bradley King. It was both an unexpected pleasure and, for Elinor, a great relief, since it signalled that Helen King had devised a plan.
They arrived at the Kings’ home to find two other guests present; they were two gentlemen from Oxford, one a distinguished scholar and the other a well-known theologian. Both men were involved in the campaign of Mr Wilberforce to abolish slavery in all its forms in Britain and her colonies. They were there to invite Dr Bradley King to speak at a gathering of like-minded scholars and churchmen at one of the colleges and were happy to have Edward Ferrars attend as well. Mrs King had seen that this would afford them an opportunity to put her plan into action. When they withdrew to the drawing room, she revealed it to Elinor. “If Dr King and Mr Ferrars go to Oxford with them, we could make the journey to Barton Park to visit your mother on the same day, with no need for any concealment. What could be more natural?” she said, and Elinor could have hugged her. Taking both her hands, she said, “Oh Helen, that would be wonderful. Edward need not be concerned at all—we could visit my mother, stay overnight at Barton Cottage, and return with her on the day following. Nothing could be simpler.”
And so it was arranged. Elinor was relieved not to have to detail her troubled thoughts about Marianne to her husband, who agreed that it was a perfectly good scheme for Elinor and Mrs King to travel to Devonshire and visit Mrs Dashwood.
“I imagine she will be delighted to see you, my dear, after enduring the company of just Sir John and Mrs Jennings for several weeks; I am sure it will be a most pleasant surprise,” he said as they prepared for bed, and Elinor had not the heart to disabuse him. What she had to tell her mother was unlikely to be pleasant, and Elinor was certain it would not be welcome news to Mrs Dashwood.
***
Meanwhile, back at Delaford Manor, Marianne had spent the evening in her bedroom, writing in her diary. When she had begun it, a few weeks ago, she had not expected that there would be much to write each day; she regarded her life as being rather ordinary and often boring. Some of the earlier entries reflected this attitude.
Nothing very exciting happens here; unless one were to regard a commotion in the lower meadow, when some pigs escaped from their enclosure and got into an argument with the cattle, as a stirring adventure. I suppose it was matter of life and death for the pigs, which would have come off worse if the men hadn’t rescued them and shut them up in their sty. Silly things!
Two days later, she wrote:
A letter from Mama brought news that she is enjoying her stay at Barton Park. Evidently she is in sole charge of the household because Sir John is too busy with business matters and Mrs Jennings is still too depressed to take an interest. Mama says she has been back to the cottage just the once since Lady M’s funeral, and that was only to collect some warm clothes. Sir John’s housekeeper has assigned a maid to attend to her needs, which must mean Mama is very well looked after at Barton Park.
However, within the last fortnight, several incidents that had happened ensured that the pages of her diary were filling up with accounts of events and people she never could have anticipated. Looking over the last few days, she read her entries with some degree of amusement.
Margaret is here in Dorset, staying with Elinor and Edward at the parsonage. She came over to see me and met the Perceval girls, Maria and Eugenie, who came to tea and invited me to join them on an excursion to Somerset, in particular to Glastonbury. I have, quite fortuitously, become involved in an acquaintance with the Percevals, thanks to Robert and Lucy Ferrars, but I do not think Margaret liked them very much. They are not particularly well educated, enjoy telling silly jokes, and do not care for reading, which means they could hardly find anything to say to Margaret, who has become quite a scholar now! But they are very good-natured and amiable and lots of fun, which is in short supply here, so I have to confess that I am very happy to know them.
One recent consequence of her “fortuitous acquaintance” with the Perceval girls—the excursion to Glastonbury—received special mention in Marianne’s diary.
I shall always recall the excursion to Glastonbury as an occasion that promised a great deal of interest and then seemed to provide very little, because hardly anyone in the party apart from me seemed to know or care about the significance of this historic place. The Percevals and their friends the Hawthornes appeared to care not one whit for the ancient tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, although they did giggle like schoolgirls over the romance of Lancelot and Guinevere. I was ready to give up on the day altogether, when something quite astonishing happened and someone I had not seen in many years appeared on the scene. I cannot recall the moment I heard his voice without a sense of shock, yet he was completely calm and collected, and even if he thought that I may have been shaken, he did not reveal it and behaved in a very gentlemanly manner, acting as though we were strangers who had just met, making no reference at all to our previous association, which was thoughtful of him, since it might have been quite embarrassing if I had to explain our previous acquaintance to the Percevals and their friends.
Following the chance meeting, which I took to be the last time I would see him there, we met again because of the accident that damaged the Percevals’ carriage and left us stranded. His generous offer to convey some of the party to their homes meant that I was once again in his company for some two hours, during which we talked but without once intruding upon our personal lives, as though he was trying quite deliberately to make me understand that he had accepted that our lives had diverged forever and this meeting was of two different people who might meet as new acquaintances. It is an idea with which I find I am quite comfortable.
Had her sister Elinor seen Marianne’s diary, it is certain she would not have been comfortable at all. Indeed, had she known what had followed upon the events recorded there, her sense of anxiety would undoubtedly have been increased considerably.
Two days after the excursion to Glastonbury, Marianne had been upstairs in her room, in one of those moods that she had found herself slipping into recently—a mood in which she would allow her mind to wander freely into the past, in a manner that she had quite deliberately avoided before. Since the evening when Mr Willoughby had brought her safely home from the Percevals, she had permitted herself to think of him often, but always having assured herself that the Willoughby she
was contemplating was the man she had met again recently, at Glastonbury; the man who had behaved with great civility and decorum, who had conveyed her to Delaford, without making reference to their past acquaintance, to her husband or family.
“Quite clearly,” she had told herself, “he wishes me to understand that he has no wish to resurrect the past that brought us so much sorrow and wants to deal with present circumstances as he finds them. Perhaps it is not too much to hope that we can be friends.” She had been toying with the notion when her maid had come in to announce that a visitor had arrived and she had shown him into the sitting room. On being asked who it was, the girl said only that it was the gentleman from Somerset and he hadn’t given his name.
Marianne seemed unable to think clearly for a moment or two, but soon recollected that she must not appear discomposed before the servant, and asked that the girl have a tea tray prepared and brought into the sitting room. When she went down, she found Willoughby standing by the fireplace, looking quite at ease, as though it was the most normal thing in the world that he should be there. She was puzzled; how did he know that Colonel Brandon was from home? He would not have risked meeting him, surely? She wondered and was concerned that she may have unwittingly said something that had given him a clue.
But when they met, his words told her otherwise. “Mrs Brandon, I am excessively relieved to see you are well and have suffered no harm from the ordeal of waiting several hours in uncomfortable surroundings. I called at the Percevals and discovered they were all well but for Mrs Perceval, who has a bad cold as a consequence of the exposure she suffered, and keeps to her room; I was concerned that it may have made you unwell, too.”
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