Joanna Trollope: Sense & Sensibility

She paused and looked at Belle with significance.

‘And’, she went on, ‘he said to Charlotte that although he didn’t love his wife, he didn’t think his life would be all dark, either, that he’d probably salvage something out of it one way or another. But that he’d never feel about anyone the way he felt about Marianne, and if he heard that she’d married Bill Brandon, he’d be gutted. That was the word he used to Charlotte, dear. Gutted.’

Belle took a deep breath and edged herself past Abigail to the doorway. ‘I never trusted him, you know,’ she said. ‘It was something about his eyes.’

‘Holy smoke,’ Sir John Middleton said to his wife, ‘will you look at those two?’

Across the lawn, to the south of Delaford House, came Mr and Mrs Robert Ferrars. They were dressed alike, in cream cutaway coats over skinny jeans and cowboy boots. Lucy’s hair was in long ringlets down her back, and Robert’s was crowned with a cream trilby hat. They wore sunglasses, and they were holding hands.

‘It’s jaw-dropping,’ Sir John said.

Mary Middleton put her own sunglasses on so that she could scrutinise them less conspicuously. She said, ‘What do they think they’re doing?’

Sir John took her arm. ‘Watch,’ he said.

Halfway across the lawn, Bill Brandon had set up tables, under sun umbrellas, laden with food and drinks. People had gathered there, in companionable groups, among them Edward and Elinor. He had his arm firmly around her shoulders and they looked, as Mary had pointed out to her husband, as delighted with themselves and their situation as a newly engaged couple ought to be.

They were not, plainly, aware of Lucy and Robert advancing towards them, but were instead talking to John Dashwood, who, since he was facing the direction of the house, saw the newly married couple before Edward and Elinor did. He not only saw them, but was utterly astonished by what he saw, and broke off what he was saying to stand there, his mouth half open, and his arm, clutching a tumbler of Pimm’s, outstretched in a gesture of amazement.

‘Ellie!’ Lucy Ferrars cried, loud enough to be heard across the lawn. ‘This is so fab!’

She flung her arms out wide, and then swooped forward and wrapped them round Elinor.

‘Big brother!’ Robert exclaimed to Edward, who was standing stunned by what had happened to Elinor, and did the same.

‘They planned it!’ Mary Middleton exclaimed to her husband.

‘She’s a baggage, that girl,’ Sir John said.

‘You didn’t think so once.’

‘Neither of us did, my duck. We were completely taken in.’

‘Well,’ Mary said, ‘that’s not happening now! Look at Ellie!’

Elinor had stepped smartly back out of Lucy’s embrace, and taken Edward’s hand to help him do the same. Lucy and Robert exchanged glances and took another step forward. Elinor held up a hand.

‘No!’ she said warningly.

Sir John shook his wife’s arm. ‘Good girl,’ he said approvingly. ‘Good for Elinor.’

There was a small stir in another group across the lawn, and from it emerged Mrs Ferrars, diminutive and upright in a linen coat dress, her handbag over her arm. She marched determinedly across the grass until she was standing beside Elinor.

‘It might be’, she said to Elinor in carrying tones, ‘how you go on in your family. But it’s not the case in ours. Family is family. Blood is thicker than water. This party is, I believe, to celebrate your engagement to my son. It was at your instigation that my younger son and his wife were invited. So I think it hardly behoves you not to welcome them when they do come, do you?’

There was an appalled silence. Edward and Elinor stared at his mother, mute with surprise. And then Lucy Ferrars, tearing off her sunglasses and uttering a theatrical sob, tottered forward and put her arms round her new mother-in-law instead. ‘Oh, thank you!’ she said tremulously. ‘Thank you, thank you.’

The sun was setting. From the window of the room that would be their future sitting room, Edward and Elinor watched the shadow of the house inch its way over the grass to where the trees began, on the edge of the park. Elinor said, ‘It makes me think of Norland.’

He put an arm round her. He said, ‘If it wasn’t for Norland …’

‘I know.’

He kissed the side of her head. He said, ‘We pulled it off today, you know.’

‘Even your mother’s little moment?’

‘Even that. Lucy won’t get very far. My mother will do almost anything for Robert, but she won’t let anyone else have first call on him. It might have looked like a little triumph for Lucy today, but it won’t last. Mother has a hair-trigger response to exploitation.’

‘And Fanny—’

Edward laughed. ‘Fanny won’t forgive Lucy.’

‘She was quite nice to me today.’

He kissed her again. He said, ‘No one can resist being nice to you. In the end.’

Elinor leaned against him. She said, ‘D’you think Ma means it, about moving into Exeter?’

Edward said, ‘At least she’s got the good sense not to try and move here.’

‘It would be better for Mags, in Exeter,’ Elinor said. ‘Barton Cottage will be unbearable for Mags if I’m not there, and Marianne’s in Bristol much of the time. And if Ma actually gets this little teaching job she’s after—’

‘Hey,’ Edward said suddenly, ‘look at that!’

Along the edge of the trees, in and out of the dappled sunlight, came a couple walking together, her long skirt catching picturesquely on the clumps of tall grasses as she passed. Elinor bent forward to see better. She said, ‘They’re not holding hands.’

‘No. But they look pretty comfortable together.’

‘She’s holding flowers instead. She’s always done that. When we were little, we had to keep stopping on walks so she could pick something, and then she’d just leave them somewhere, on the doorstep or the table or in her gumboot, and they’d die.’

Edward said softly, ‘They actually look pretty happy, don’t you think?’

Elinor smiled.

‘Nine months ago she said he was old and boring and wore scarves to protect his throat in winter.’

‘What would she say now, d’you suppose?’

Elinor glanced up at him. She laughed. She said, ‘I think she’d say that she was mistaken!’

Edward looked out across the lawn again. He said, ‘What d’you reckon his chances are?’

Elinor turned to face him, so that she could put her arms around him and lay her cheek against his chest.

‘I reckon’, she said, her voice faintly muffled, ‘that his chances are pretty good. Marianne can’t do anything by halves, and certainly not loving.’

‘All or nothing.’

‘Yes.’

Edward put his own arms around her and laid his cheek on the top of her head. ‘All,’ he said contentedly. ‘All. I’ll settle for that.’