Joanna Trollope: Sense & Sensibility

‘Could you possibly tell it quickly?’

‘Of course.’ Abigail laid her hand on the edge of Sir John’s immense, sustainably sourced modern oak desk. ‘There are four of them, the mother and three girls, two grown up, one at school. And because of various deaths, including the girls’ father, and some antediluvian inheritance laws, this poor family finds itself out on its ear with very little money and nowhere to go. Nowhere .’

Sir John drew a rough circle on the pad on the desk in front of him and added a moustache and a smile. He said, doubtfully, sensing another appeal to his good nature coming up, ‘Perhaps they could rent?’

‘Don’t behave like everyone else, Jonno,’ Abigail said firmly. ‘These are four members of your family, shocked by the death of their father and husband and being thrown out of a way of life which is the only one they know. And you are not exactly short of property, dear, now are you?’

There was a small silence, and then Sir John said, ‘D’you know, I think I remember Henry Dashwood. Nice fellow. A bit head in the clouds but decent. Hopeless shot. He came for a hens-only day, one January, forever ago. It’s his widow and daughters, you mean?’

‘It is.’

Sir John added ears to his circle. He said with sudden resolution, ‘Abigail, you were quite right to come to me. Quite right.’ He beamed at her again. ‘I have an idea. I’ll set about it the moment I’ve dealt with the distributors. I do have an idea! I do!’

It was Elinor who saw his car arrive. She had been looking out for it because she didn’t want Fanny snaffling him and dragging him into her lair in order to subtly dissuade him from making whatever kind of offer he’d driven all the way from Devon to make. Even if he was quite a forceful man – and he’d sounded pretty forceful in a cheerful kind of way, on the telephone – you never could quite count on anyone to be proof against Fanny if she wanted to bend you to her will.

So when Sir John’s green Range Rover slid to a halt in the drive, Elinor raced from the kitchen to the front door to greet him and to thank him most earnestly for insisting on coming to see them, but also to indicate to him, somehow, that the startling renovations instituted by the new mistress of Norland Park – whose costly designer mood boards were propped prominently around the entrance hall – was not to be perceived in any way as indicative of any of the rest of the Dashwood family’s own tastes, wishes or manners. It was Elinor’s aim, flinging open both the leaves of the great front door, to get Sir John through the hall and along to their own unreconstructed sitting room as fast as she could. Only when he was safely ensconced by the fire that Belle had lit especially, alongside the jug of Michaelmas daisies that had been cut from the borders on a day when Fanny was in London, would she quite relax. Sir John looked, Elinor thought, like one of the good-hearted characters from a Dickens novel: broad and healthy, with a ready smile and clothes in optimistic colours. He kissed her warmly, and fraternally, collected a laptop and a bottle of champagne from the boot of the car, and followed her into the house, talking all the way.

‘Of course I remember your dad. Lovely man. Useless with a gun. I say, this is elegant. Look at this floor! We aren’t quite as formal as this at Barton, though Mary would love us to be, but of course, the house is earlier. You’ll love our library. I am very proud of our library. God in heaven, will you look at that staircase! I suppose you lot slid down the bannisters when you were little. Lethal, when you think about it, with a marble floor waiting at the bottom. Mary’s put seagrass over foam rubber in our hall so the ankle-biters don’t smash their skulls. I say they should take their chance, but she won’t have it. As I’m a relation, dear girl, I’m free to tell you that you’re really attractive. I mean that. And I hear that your sisters—’

‘Are much prettier,’ Elinor said quickly.

‘Can’t be. Simply can’t be. I never saw your mother but your dad implied that she was a corker.’

‘She still is,’ Elinor said. She opened the door to the sitting room and stood back for him to enter. ‘See for yourself.’

Belle and Marianne and Margaret all rose from the chairs where they had been waiting, and smiled at him.

‘Golly,’ Sir John said. ‘Golly. Have all my Christmases come at once? Or what? Aren’t you all gorgeous?’

‘Look,’ Sir John said later, expansive with tea and three of the scones that Belle had made that morning, ‘look, I said to Mary, family’s family, and we’ve been bloody lucky.’

He was settled deep in the armchair that Henry used to use, his tea mug in one hand. ‘Bloody lucky,’ he repeated. ‘We are able to live in a great place, employ local people, educate the nippers, have good holidays and a very respectable standard of life. And, I said to Mary, what’s Belle got? No home, no money, Henry dead and those girls. Listen, I said to Mary, blood’s thicker than water. I’d never forgive myself for watching my old pa’s cousins struggling while I book a chalet for Christmas in Méribel. No thank you, I said to Mary. Not my way.’

He took a final swallow from his tea mug and reached to park it on the nearest side table. ‘And here we come to the crunch. I can’t neglect you and your situation while Barton Cottage stands empty. I just can’t. And we can use you girls in the business, I’m sure we can.’ He winked at Marianne. ‘You’d be fantastic in the catalogue.’

‘I hate being photographed,’ Marianne said distantly, ‘I believe those people who think that the camera steals your soul.’

Elinor gave a little gasp. ‘Oh, M, really—’

‘Listen to her!’ Sir John said, roaring with laughter. ‘Just listen . Don’t you love it?’

He beckoned to Margaret. ‘Pass me my laptop, there’s a good girl.’

She came slowly across the room and handed the laptop to him. And then she stood beside him and waited while he fussed over the keys. She said, wearily, ‘Shall I help you?’

He grinned at the screen. ‘Cheeky monkey.’

‘It’d be quicker.’

‘There it is!’ Sir John shouted suddenly. ‘There they are! Pictures!’

Margaret bent.

‘How’s that!’ Sir John exclaimed. ‘A slide show! A slide show of your new home! Barton Cottage. It’s a charmer. You’ll love it.’

Slowly, the four of them formed a semicircle behind the armchair. Sir John made a tremendous show of clicking and flicking until a photograph of an uncompromisingly small modern house on a slope, backed by trees, filled the screen.

‘But,’ Marianne cried in disappointment, ‘it’s new!’

‘I’ve just built it,’ Sir John said with satisfaction. ‘Planning was a complete nightmare but I battled through. I was going to use it as a holiday let.’

‘It’s – lovely,’ Belle said faintly.

‘Perfect spot,’ Sir John said, ‘amazing views, new bathroom, kitchen, utility, the works.’ He glanced at Marianne. ‘You wanted roses round the door?’

‘And maybe thatch …’

‘Marianne, honestly! So ungrateful.’

‘No, she isn’t,’ Sir John said. ‘Just honest. And it’s a comedown after this place. I can see that.’ He looked back at the screen. It now showed an astonishing view down a wooded valley, dramatic and startlingly green.

‘Well?’

Belle deliberately avoided looking at her daughters. She said, in a rush, ‘We’d love it.’

‘Ma—’

‘No,’ she said. She wouldn’t look at them. She looked instead at the next picture, of a steep hill rushing up towards a cloud-dappled sky. ‘We’d love it. It looks charming. Such a – setting.’