Abigail Jennings said, rising from one of the sofas in a flurry of scarves and small dogs, ‘if it isn’t the famous Dashwood girls!’ She flung her arms wide and laughed merrily. ‘Jonno said you were all gorgeous and he isn’t wrong! He’s wrong about most things, bless him, being only a man and therefore by definition in the wrong, but he said you were gorgeous and you are. My goodness, you are.’ She turned to a tall, lean man beside her and dug her elbow playfully into his ribs. ‘Don’t you think so, Bill?’
The tall man smiled, but said nothing. The girls stood in a row, just inside the door, with Belle slightly ahead of them, and looked at the floor.
‘Can’t stand this,’ Marianne said to Elinor between clenched teeth.
‘Sh.’
‘She’s fat,’ Margaret hissed vengefully, ‘as well as obviously being a sick bitch—’
‘Mags!’
‘I didn’t want to come out to supper, I wanted to watch—’
Elinor lifted her head. ‘Sorry.’
The tall man was looking at her sympathetically. Then his gaze shifted to Marianne, and Elinor saw something familiar happen, a startled arrested something that had everything to do with the arrangement of Marianne’s extraordinary features, and nothing whatsoever to do with her current expression of pure mulishness.
Sir John was pulling his mother-in-law forward like a prize exhibit, the dogs yapping round their feet. ‘Belle. Meet Abigail, my monster-in-law. Bane of my life, who, as you see, I adore. Mrs Jennings to you, girls. She’s pretty well a fixture here, I can tell you. The nippers adore her too. When she’s here, the gin goes down like bath water.’ He put an arm affectionately round Abigail’s shoulders. ‘Isn’t that true, Abi?’
‘If you left any, it would be!’ Abigail cried.
She extricated herself and came forward to kiss them all warmly. ‘Belle, welcome, dear. And girls. Lovely girls. Now, let me get you sorted. Elinor, you must be Elinor. And Marianne of the famous guitar? Oh, it is famous, dear, it is. Bill over there plays it, too. We know all about guitars at Barton – you’ll see! And this is Margaret. Don’t scowl, dear, I’m not a witch. Far too fat for any self-respecting broomstick. Now, Jonno, aren’t you going to introduce Bill?’
Sir John flung out an arm in the direction of the tall man, who had stood quietly by the immense marble fireplace without moving or uttering a word since they came in. ‘Meet my old mucker, girls. Belle, this is William Brandon. Late of the Light Dragoons. My regiment. My old dad’s regiment.’ He glanced at the tall man with sudden seriousness. ‘We were in Bosnia together, Bill and me. Weren’t we?’ He turned back to Belle. ‘And then he stayed in, and rose to command the regiment and now he devotes himself to good works, God help us, and comes here for a bit of normality and a decent claret. It’s his second home, eh Bill?’ He gestured to the tall man to come forward. ‘Come on, Bill, come on. That’s better. Now then, this is Colonel Brandon, Belle.’
She held out her hand, smiling. William Brandon stepped forward and took it, bowing a little. ‘Welcome to Devon.’
‘He’s so old,’ Marianne muttered to Elinor.
‘No, he isn’t, he looks—’
‘They’re all old. Old and old-fashioned and—’
‘Boring,’ Margaret said.
Mrs Jennings turned towards them. She looked at Margaret. She was laughing again. ‘What wouldn’t bore you, dear? Boys?’
Margaret went scarlet. Marianne put an arm round her.
‘Come on now,’ Abigail said. ‘There must be boys in your lives!’
Marianne stared at her. ‘None,’ she said.
‘One!’ Margaret blurted out.
‘Oh? Oh?’
‘Shut up, Mags.’
Colonel Brandon stepped forward and put a restraining hand on Abigail’s arm. He said to everyone else, soothingly, ‘How about I get everyone a drink?’
Belle looked at him gratefully. ‘I’d love one. And – and you play the guitar?’
‘Badly.’
‘Brilliantly!’ Sir John shouted. ‘He’s a complete pain in the arse!’
‘Would you play later?’ Colonel Brandon asked Marianne.
She didn’t look at him. She said, unhelpfully, ‘I didn’t bring my guitar.’
‘We could fetch it!’ Abigail said.
‘Another time, perhaps?’ Colonel Brandon said.
Marianne gave a ghost of a smile. ‘Yes, please, another time.’
‘Too bad,’ Abigail said. ‘Too bad. We were looking forward to a party. Weren’t we, Jonno? No boys, no music …’
Sir John moved round the group so that he could put an arm round Margaret. ‘We’ll soon remedy that, won’t we?’ He bent, beaming, so that his nose was almost touching hers. ‘Won’t we? We can start by christening your tree house!’
Margaret pulled her head back as far as Sir John’s embrace would allow. ‘How d’you know about that?’
He laid a finger of his free hand against his nose. ‘Nothing at Barton escapes me. Nothing.’ He winked at his mother-in-law and they both went off into peals of laughter. ‘Does it?’
‘I can’t do this,’ Marianne said later.
She was sitting on the end of her mother’s bed, in the muddle of half-unpacked boxes, nursing a mug of peppermint tea.
Belle put down her book. ‘It was rather awful.’
‘It was very awful. All that canned laughter. All the jokes. None of them funny—’
‘They’re so good-hearted. And well meaning, Marianne.’
‘It’s fatal to be well meaning.’
Belle laughed. ‘But, darling, it’s where kindness comes from.’
Marianne took a swallow of tea. ‘I don’t think her ladyship is kind.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. She was perfectly nice to us.’
Marianne looked up. She said, ‘She wasn’t interested in us. She just went through the motions. She only got a bit animated when the children came down.’
‘So sweet.’
‘Were they?’
‘Oh, M,’ Belle said, ‘of course they were sweet, like Harry is sweet. It’s not their fault if they are hopelessly mothered!’
Marianne
