Chapter Four #2
Margaret watched her daughter’s face carefully, but Marianne betrayed no embarrassment.
Of course there must have been no impropriety of their going for a ride—Willoughby was as fine a man as they had ever met.
“Well, now, let us not distress them,” she said, and the young people exchanged a knowing look.
“There is nothing distressing in it,” Marianne said with playful defiance. “Mr. Willoughby has taken me to see Allenham. It was a very near drive, and I am glad we went.”
Mrs. Jennings only laughed. “Well! I hope you like your house, Miss Marianne. It is a very large one, and when I visit you there, I hope you will have refurnished it, for it very much wanted it when I was there six years ago.”
Marianne colored and made no reply, and abruptly moved away to approach young Margaret and Elinor, who were walking down by the pond.
Willoughby watched her go with a look of pleasing affection, which only endeared him more to Margaret.
“I hope I was not wrong in bringing her there,” said he.
“It is to be mine, some day, and I am much fonder of it than I am of Combe Magna—someday, perhaps, I shall have every reason to spend more time there than my other estate.” He gave Margaret a quick wink and leaned in, his voice low.
“I hope to speak more about that matter in particular, very soon….”
Though Margaret’s heart swelled at the thought that her daughter’s felicity was so near, Mrs. Jennings had interjected once more. “Well, now, Mr. Impudence! Here is Tom with the post, and it would serve you quite right to find a letter summoning you away,” she laughed.
Tom handed the post to Margaret, owning that as the letters were from her relations, he had thought they ought to be delivered right away.
Margaret thanked him, and when her offer of refreshments was declined and her servant gone away, she looked at the two letters with interest. One was from John Dashwood; she instinctively put it aside, opening the note from her Aunt Prudence first.
Mr. Willoughby made some reply to Mrs. Jennings about his triumph in not being called away, but Margaret paid him little heed as she read over her aunt’s words.
Her feelings a great tumult afterward, she soon applied herself to John’s letter, which only confirmed what her aunt had written.
“Girls, girls!” She waved her three daughters over, and they came running at once.
Elinor reached them first, with Marianne and young Margaret close on her heels. “What is it, Mamma?”
Margaret handed John’s letter over to Elinor, who shared it with her sisters as Margaret made some explanation to their friends. “We have been invited to Norland.”
“Well! That is unexpected,” replied Mrs. Jennings, who knew all of the particulars of the Dashwood ladies’ departure from the place in August.
Willoughby looked stricken. “What, are you to go away?”
“Certainly not,” Marianne cried with vehemence. She swatted at the letter and came to sit between Willoughby and Margaret. “I am sure they were vastly eager for us to leave this summer—I wonder why they should invite us back at all. We are happy right where we are, are we not, Mamma?”
Margaret would have been inclined to agree, were it not for her glance in Elinor’s direction.
Her eldest was still reading over the letter, and as Margaret knew it made no specific mention of Edward Ferrars, only an allusion to Fanny Dashwood’s relations joining the party, Margaret could well imagine what Elinor must be feeling.
Before they had gone away, Fanny’s brother Edward had visited Norland, and he and Elinor had formed an attachment; that Fanny had looked upon the matter with such decided disfavor had been impetus for the Dashwoods to quit the place and come to Barton.
Margaret saw that Marianne was watching her sister now, too, and imagined her second daughter to have some pity for poor Elinor’s plight.
What was Margaret to do, when one of her dear girls must be wishing to go, and be reunited with the man she loved, while another of her darlings would not wish to leave and be separated from her own suitor?
It was a pity that Willoughby had not yet spoken—his intentions were certainly clear after today’s excursion, and were things finally settled between him and Marianne, he might have some right to follow them to Norland.
Mrs. Jennings was eating grapes and laughing heartily as Elinor handed off the letter to young Margaret and came to sit on the picnic blanket. “Well, my dear girl, any news of your Mr. F.?”
Elinor wrung her hands in her skirt and sat down at Margaret’s side. Ignoring their matronly friend’s comments, she said, “Well, Mamma, shall we accept?”
“I must think it over,” Margaret said with some hesitation. “There is certainly some economy in the notion of going.”
“Economy,” Marianne huffed. “If that is the only good that can be said of the plan, better to stay at home with our friends.” She looked pointedly at Willoughby, who bestowed a brilliant smile on her.
Margaret looked back to Elinor. Certainly, from a practical standpoint, Elinor would favor the plan—she managed the household expenses, a difficult matter with their income so small, and more than once since coming to Barton had the sisters quarreled over the necessity of beef and sugar.
And yet it was such a bleak excuse to be going to Norland, when Edward’s presence there was not a certainty.
“Marianne,” Elinor said gently, “We must be as kind to our brother John as we would wish him to be to us. It is generous of him to invite us back again so soon. Besides, should you not like to see our Bertram relations?”
“Why should I?” Marianne grimaced, and offered some explanation to Willoughby. “Our cousins from the north have surely forgotten us, for we heard nothing from them when Papa died. I should feel awkward in putting myself forward in their notice now, when it was not willingly bestowed before.”
“Our Uncle Thomas was out of the country until very lately, in the West Indies,” Elinor replied.
“The West Indies?” Young Margaret sat down with a look of great interest. “Colonel Brandon has told me all about the East Indies—I should like to hear of our uncle’s travels very much!”
Mr. Willoughby laughed and tousled young Margaret’s hair.
“I daresay we can find a book or two about it in Allenham’s library for you, without your having to go away.
Of course, I am fairly biased.” He looked at Marianne with no little significance.
“I am sure I should be quite heartbroken if you were all to go away while I am still in the country, for I never visit twice in a twelvemonth.”
“So you would not be at Allenham when we returned?” Marianne recoiled in alarm.
“No, I daresay I would not. I had thought to be at Allenham a little while longer—long enough to settle…. Well, if you are to go away, I am sure I should be most forlorn.”
“Mamma,” Marianne implored.