‘Charles is older than I am.’
‘True, but you are four-and-twenty, old enough to be finding someone with a good dowry of twenty or thirty thousand pounds. There is a particular young lady I think you will like, a Miss Barton.’
I will be very surprised if I like Miss Barton, my father’s and my tastes on young ladies being exactly opposite, but it will not stop my father from bringing her to my notice at every opportunity.
Eleanor was sympathetic. I found her in the arbour, sheltered from the wind, well wrapped up in her coat and cloak, writing in her journal.
‘Do not let me interrupt you,’ I said. ‘I would not want to get in the way. I hope you are writing of me. Let me tell you what you ought to say: Henry home, booted and greatcoated – complimented me on my gown – said that blue becomes me – admired the curl of my hair – disturbed me with his nonsense when I would much sooner be writing in my journal.’
She laughed and put her journal aside.
‘I did not expect you back so soon. Have you come to say goodbye?’
‘Never goodbye, my dear Eleanor, though you are right, I told our father I would be leaving for Woodston next week. In his usual way he overrode me and the result is that I am to stay for the house party and leave next month. He wishes me to marry Miss Barton.’
‘She is very beautiful.’
‘And very mercenary. She will not settle for a younger son, and comes only in the hope of seeing Frederick. She will profess herself delighted with the abbey, the neighbours, the countryside, in short everything about us, for the first week. Then, after ten or eleven days, when she learns that Frederick has no interest in her, she will discover that the countryside lacks true beauty; by the end of the second week she will find that our neighbours are boors; by the time the party ends she will be concealing her yawns behind her hands and whispering to the rest of our guests that she will not be sorry to leave.’
‘I think our father means us all to find our destinies this month. He has told me on a number of occasions that General Courteney’s nephew and the Marquis of Longtown’s son are both admirable gentlemen, and that either one of them would make me a good husband. I believe he means to marry me off to one or other of them.’
I sat down beside her.
‘Have nothing to do with the Marquis of Longtown’s son,’ I said. ‘He will in time be a marquis himself, and they are always imperious and cruel.’
She laughed, and we were both taken back to a moment eight years ago, when we read A Sicilian Romance.
‘Did you ever finish it?’ I asked Eleanor.
‘No, I never read any of it after Mama ...’ She fell silent for a few moments and then, rousing herself, said, ‘Did you?’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘We have not been very fair to Julia. We have left her imprisoned in a small room and we have left Ferdinand languishing in a dungeon. Do you never want to know what happened to them?’
‘Perhaps, one day.’ She looked about her, at the newly replanted arbour, and said, ‘A lot has changed since then, but in essentials it is still the same. You have still not found your heroine.’
‘Alas, no, despite Papa holding regular house parties in an effort to bring more wealth – I beg your pardon, a heroine – into the family. I will not find her in Miss Barton, that is sure. Do you know who the other guests are to be?’
‘Yes, I wrote the invitations myself.’
She named them all, and I gave a wry smile.
‘And so, the characters are before us,’ I said. ‘Eleanor Tilney, heroine; General Tilney, the imperious father; Frederick Tilney, the son and heir, a cynical rake; Henry Tilney, the younger son, an ironic creature with – perhaps – the soul of a romantic; an assortment of gentlemen who seek to take the heroine off to their castles, or at least their residences in the remote reaches of the country; friends of Frederick Tilney, idle and extravagant; a collection of military gentlemen, friends of General Tilney; and an absence of the friends of Miss Tilney and Mr Henry Tilney, who are not considered grand enough for the occasion.’
Eleanor laughed. Then she said, ‘Frederick remains as fastidious as ever, and yet he continues to mix with the worst kinds of young men. I think that he is lonely, and yet he rejects every young woman offered to him. I cannot make him out. I sometimes wonder whether he will ever find anyone good enough to be loved by him, for I am certain that that is what is the cause of his problems. Do you think he will find anyone?’
‘I begin to despair of it. His early disappointment has given him a morose outlook, and as life has not provided him with any proof that love exists, he takes leave to doubt it. Whereas I – I have not given up hope,’ I said.
‘I am glad of it. You are not so very old, only four-and-twenty, there is time for you yet.’
‘And you, my dear Eleanor, are only twenty. Far too young to be marrying General Courteney’s nephew and, at any age, far too good to be marrying the Marquis of Longtown’s son. They are here already, I understand.’
‘Yes. Papa wanted his particular friends to himself for a few days before the rest of the guests arrived, and their families of course came with them. I am hoping you will render me your assistance in my attempts to avoid them, for they have been following me everywhere I go. Only in the library am I safe if I remain indoors. They never so much as look at a book. But I believe we may be free of them here for awhile.’
‘When I marry – if I marry – my wife must love to read. I shall make it the one condition. Her dowry is unimportant, her family is irrelevant, but she must be a lover of novels, or else no wedding will take place!’
Wednesday 31 October
It is as I suspected, the house party is dull and if not for Eleanor I should depart for Woodston, whatever my father might say. But I cannot abandon her to such poor company. Frederick speaks to no one except his own particular friends and it is a blessing they keep to the billiard room, for when the door opens, a cloud of smoke and brandy fumes escape, sent on their way by ribald stories and even more ribald laughter. Miss Barton, as I suspected, catches him whenever he is not in the billiard room and flatters him from breakfast to supper, though he treats her with contempt. My father is polite enough, but he promotes his friends’ relations at every opportunity, and poor Eleanor is hard put to keep away from them. The only interesting point is that one of Fredericks’ guests, Mr Morris, avoids the billiard room and indeed seems to avoid Frederick. He does not in the least look like one of Frederick’s friends, lacking a swagger, and having something of the look of a startled deer. Eleanor and I have spent much of our time speculating as to his identity. It is fortunate we have this mystery, for there is little else to entertain us here.
NOVEMBER
Friday 9 November
A surprising day, or perhaps it is better to say a tedious day with a surprising evening. My father was holding forth in the drawing room after dinner and Frederick’s friends were in the billiard room, so Eleanor and I took refuge in the library. We had just begun to talk about the marquis’s son when there was an embarrassed cough and Mr Thomas Morris stepped out from behind one of the bookcases.
It was an awkward moment. He had evidently been in the library when we arrived and he had unwittingly overheard our conversation. He did not laugh and make some dubious remark, as might be expected from one of Frederick’s friends. Instead, he blushed and fingered his collar and muttered his apologies, adding that he had not meant to overhear our conversation but that he had been searching for a book.