Mrs. Dashwood, 2

This image of my notebook has nothing to do with the tone of this story, but it will keep FB from censoring my posts.

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“I am hopeful, my loves,” said Mrs. Dashwood, cradling tea steaming in her own familiar china, the set that Fanny had coveted but not won. “There is scope in a cottage. We are now settled, every dear picture and cabinet in its own place, whereas a larger house would have tried our few possessions with room after room of rearranging.”

“It is so small,” said Marianne. “The ritual of tea should be one of elegance and grace, and yet we are all elbows here in the parlor.”

“Parlors at a economical rent are often economically sized,” said Elinor. “And as I am to do the dusting, I could not wish the room an iota larger. Except when Margaret jostles my elbow.”

“You put it in my face,” Margaret rejoined. “Would you prefer that I bit you instead of this sandwich?”

“It is a very conveniently sized apartment,” said Mrs. Dashwood stoutly. “Indeed, I am glad that we are to have the pleasure of planning our own improvements, rather than finding everything arranged to someone else’s taste. My cousin Sir John is to be commended on his good sense in constructing a house on a small, sensible plan and furnishing it so practically. He has overlooked nothing for our comfort — but that is only to be expected; he always was one whose delight was the delight of others.”

“He is certainly consideration itself,” said Elinor cautiously. “I believe he would pack up and send us his entire house if he thought it would give us joy.”

“But he is forever pressing one to visit,” Marianne moaned. “I have no joy in society, and such frolics as Sir John would devise would be odious to any person of taste. Imagine sullying a magnificent country vista with freckled youths playing at pall-mall! Gorging on cold chicken! The soul must revolt.”

“Perhaps, but in the meanwhile the body will enjoy cold chicken,” said Elinor.

“I do believe we could eat entirely at Sir John’s expense,” Mrs. Dashwood said. “Such hampers as he sent us yesterday! Were we to dine with him every night, as he urged, and content ourselves with his garden stuffs for our other meals, we could soon economize enough to improve the house in the new year. Nothing large to start with — a study, perhaps, with a new bedroom above, and we could widen the hall to a tolerable size and put in a staircase of a really elegant design. I wonder what the staircase at Barton Park is like?”

“You may soon know, Mamma,” Margaret declared from the window. “Here’s Sir John back again, helping a   a handsome lady from his carriage. Is she Lady Middleton, do you think? Is that her little boy with her? She must mean to invite us to dinner. Do you think her son has a dog? Sir John is a most doggy gentleman.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Dashwood gazed helplessly around the suddenly inadequate apartment, until that moment so snug. “Elinor, whisk away the tea things! Marianne, your apron! Margaret, put your cap back on!

“She looks like a fashion plate,” said Marianne, stealing a glimpse out of the window. “Even the breeze does not disturb her ribbons.” 

Elinor indulged in a peek. “What does she mean by wearing such clusters of fruit on her hat? French plums! Almonds!”

“Tamarinds!” Margaret breathed. “Can she have studied the plates of exotic fruit in the Encyclopædia?”

“Is it natural to counterfeit fruit growing from one’s head?” Marianne appealed to the room at large, with compassion for any head so afflicted. “I call it a vulgar affection.”

 “You are wrong, Marianne,” her mother said, trying not to stare too obviously over the girls’ shoulders. “It is the most correct and modern taste — I had it in a letter from Miss Edwards but last month — but it is very strange.” 

“Can she be entirely sensible?” Elinor wondered. 

Mrs. Dashwood risked one more glance as Sir John opened the gate for his lady and heir. She could not comment on her benefactress before her daughters, but she had reservations about the good sense of any woman who could dress a small boy, especially one with such a sulky eye, in a profusion of frills. Perhaps the child was to sit for a portrait — it would explain both his dress and his expression. 

Aloud, she said, “We lacked only companionship to make us comfortable here, and here we find our neighbor a lady of refinement. I daresay her conversation will also be a model of taste and education. How fortunate we are, my girls!”

***

“My love,” said Mrs. Dashwood patiently, “I enter into your feelings. But you must go to dinner at Barton Park, and you will go.”

“I will not!” Marianne sobbed, draped across in the bed in the attitude of a martyr. “Lady Middleton is insipidity itself. She wears tamarinds on her head because it is the fashion. She has no conversation. No passion, no taste afflicts her, no true feeling animates her soul. She is an underbred automaton.”

“What an odd thing to say of a woman who spoke of nothing but her four children,” Mrs. Dashwood murmured, but not softly enough, for Marianne shrieked, “MaMA!” and Elinor breathed a sigh of responsibility and Margaret demanded, “What did you say, Mama? Elinor, tell me what Mamma said!”

“Nothing, Margaret,” said Elinor, pulling Margaret out of the room. Mrs. Dashwood could hear Margaret protesting all the way down the stairs, “But she did say something, because Marianne has taken offense. You tell me I must ask questions, and then when I do you never tell me anything!”

Mrs. Dashwood sat on the bed and rubbed her daughter’s heaving shoulders. “Elinor would counsel you to moderation,” she said gently.

“Elinor knows nothing but moderation,” Marianne wept. “Her behavior is everything upright and unfeeling.”

The precious memory of the private nights of grief when Elinor, at last shut away from the curious eyes of the world, and of her sisters, clung desperately to her mother, caused her mother to breathe carefully for a moment before she replied.

“Marianne, surely you do not claim that Elinor has no feelings? Not everyone displays their heart with as much generosity as you.”

“And as you, Mama. We are so alike. We are not hypocrites — we must show the world what we feel.”

“Marianne,” said her mother in alarm, “our feelings are not always our best guide. Often I was cross with Fanny for her indelicacy, but I could not indulge myself by giving her a hint. I had other considerations to guide me: consideration for John, respect for her position at Norland. “

“But how can my feelings not be true?” wailed Marianne. “I have had the best and truest teachers in the world: you and Papa. How can the hospitality of Sir John and Lady Middleton give me any joy when I recall what genuine felicity there is to be found in a profound union of hearts and minds? He is nothing but affability; she is nothing but good-breeding. They have nothing in common, but they do not fill each other’s lack. Oh, papa! How can I already be forgetting you? To hear you laugh once again! Mama, do you not wish it?”

She had resolved that she would not cry before the girls any more. It was a fault to be so weak before the children, and Henry had often reproached her for it, gently, and with tender words, for he loved her open heart and would not have it hardened. As he lay on his death, he had touched her cheek — oh, the effort it cost him to lift his hand! — and said, “Such tears will grow the grass on my grave, my dear, but if you go on so you will have to buy a sheep to nibble such a well-watered plot.”

“Crying again, Mama?” Elinor said from the door, the patience stretched thin in her voice. “My sister learns her sensibility from you; can she not also learn forbearance from your good example?”

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