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He could not write to Miss Dashwood. That was the sole thought he could cling to after reading and rereading Lucy’s letter, simultaneously shocked and overjoyed by her rejection. He was no longer bound to her, and had he received this letter before his mother cast him off, he would already have been writing to Miss Dashwood to apologize once more, explain, plead, propose at last. But now that he was dismissed both by Lucy and his mother, he felt that he had been cast adrift. He had no right to propose to Miss Dashwood when he had nothing to offer her but his hundred pounds a year and a possibility that he might one day find a living. He knew all too well how sparse were good livings, how long he might have to wait, and could not bear the prospect of once again entering into an engagement of indeterminate length, one which might drag on for years as his last one had, exhausting and possibly embittering them both. To be sure, Miss Dashwood was an altogether superior person to Lucy — he did not fear being out of love or ashamed of her in four or forty years’ time — but to be so long engaged with no fixed end in sight could be painful even for the most amiable of couples.
Besides, Miss Dashwood had her own cares. His last meeting with her in London had been friendly, but reserved — she had accepted his farewell, along with his heartfelt apology for his at first unintended deception, with grace — but she was clearly concerned about her sister’s health, and he had heard from Fanny that Miss Marianne’s illness had worsened after they left town, indeed, she had been in great danger but thankfully had pulled through. Miss Dashwood deserved some peace and calm after the turmoil she had undoubtedly undergone whilst nursing her sister. She deserved better than the little he had to offer — she deserved to be free. But if not to Barton, where should he go?
He had an answer a few days later, when the friend, Johnstone, with whom he was staying tossed him a letter as they sat at the breakfast table. “What think you of this, Edward? If you chose to stay in Oxford and scrape by tutoring alongside me I would be glad of it, but you talk like a man who needs to escape the country for a while. What do you think of going north?”
Edward unfolded the letter, puzzled. “Surely not for a living?”
“A living! Good heavens, no. I should have snapped that up for myself even if I had twenty mothers living in Oxford instead of just the one. No, it is a tutoring position — do you remember young Lemay? His uncle has put enough words in enough ears that he now has a very fine living of his own, albeit in Wales. But he must leave his tutoring position in York and writes to ask if I or someone else would care to replace him; the pay is generous and the family small — only one son, in fact, who is a very amiable child. The daughters are older, and away at school.”
Edward glanced over the scribbled lines. “Fifty pounds a year would once have seemed very little to me, but now it is a little that I cannot afford to turn down. At least the family sound to be hospitable, he praises their table and home a great deal.”
“So, what say you?”
“I cannot imagine what my mother will think.”
“Pooh! If she will cast you off but receive your brother and his wife after all, her opinion is of small moment. There is nothing ungentlemanly in teaching, and you may still have a living in time. Dr Smallwell will ordain you in short order should anything appear, but you know he does not like to ordain men who have no prospects in the moment.”
“I am like a pelican in the wilderness,” murmured Edward as he looked over Lemay’s letter. But Johnstone appeared not to hear and simply slit open another letter.
There was no reason to wait. His packing was done in half a day, Edward smiling grimly to himself as he inexpertly folded his own clothes, which it was now essential to preserve as long as possible. He would be served in his new home, but the servants would not be his. The absence of Johnstone’s servant on an errand was a warning of things to come.
He wrote only one letter. His mother had disposed of him so firmly that it would be an insult to address a letter to her. To Robert and Lucy it would be unthinkable to write. Fanny, though … somebody of his blood should know where he was, however unlikely they were to seek him out. His Oxford friends would know, of course, but it was hard to imagine any of his family thinking to apply to them. His studiousness had never been a point of pride with them. “Heavens, Edward,” Fanny had said once, not knowing how true her words would become, “One would think you were a younger son.” But Fanny had neither written a letter casting him off nor written him a letter informing him that she was marrying the person whom he had expected to marry, so to her it must go. She or her husband might soften eventually. And they might have news of the Dashwoods to pass along, as well, however unlikely it was that they would actually do so. Unwilling as he was to impose even more on the Dashwoods than he already had, he would not be averse to hearing news of them and, he hoped, their future good fortune.
The Bingley family welcomed him with almost excessive cordiality — after long days crammed into jolting carriages Edward wanted nothing more than to sleep, but of course he must be welcomed, shown to his room (well-appointed, and to his relief it had a good fire), and must be shown in to dinner so that he could meet his new pupil. “Caroline and Louisa are boarders at Miss Wilkins’s School,” said the father, a large, strident-voiced man who seemed always to be breathing hard. “They do very well there, but Mrs Bingley will have young Charles at home, as she is sure he is delicate. To my mind, he has not been delicate for some years, but he was very ill for some months as a small boy and she has fretted over him since.” Privately, Edward thought Mrs Bingley’s real concern might well be for her own health — she was a thin, pale woman with a low, sweet voice and who seemed to be in a perpetual state of exhaustion. Young Charles, by contrast, had the ruddy health of his father and the sweet affability of his mother, and Edward was pleasantly surprised by how much progress he had already made in Greek and Latin, to say nothing of his excellent French — Lemay had evidently taken his charge very seriously. Figures were another matter — Edward found even his large reserves of patience tried occasionally as Charles knitted his brows over a sum which he had had demonstrated to him two or three times already. But he was an agreeable boy, friendly and anxious to learn all he could, and never happier than when Edward took him for an excursion around the city, seeing the cathedral, the assembly rooms, and even once the theatre, although Edward could not agree to Charles’s pleas to watch the horse races. On unpleasant days they would visit the different churches and talk of theology and church history, and on pleasant days they took their lessons out-of-doors, as Edward further indulged his passion for history by telling his pupil all that the medieval walls and even the fragmented Roman ruins had seen over the centuries. Charles did not particularly care to hear tales of severed heads of traitors staring sightlessly down from the Micklegate Bar, but he did have one inquiry about an ancient murder, although he imprudently made it while at dinner, where his father had made a rare appearance — most often he was away, toiling ceaselessly at his business concerns.
“Mr Ferrars, do you come from the family of Earl Ferrers? I told my sister Louisa about you, and she wrote back that she read in a history book that Earl Ferrers was hanged for murdering his servant, long ago.”
“Charles!” His father did not look or sound amused. “No gentleman would ask such a question! Apologise at once to Mr Ferrars.”
Edward spoke before Charles could do so. “Please, Mr Bingley, there is no offense taken. It is quite natural for Charles and his sisters to be curious about stories they have heard from history. Beside, I can assure you that I know of no relationship between my family and that of Earl Ferrers.”
“But yours is an old family, is it not?” asked Mr Bingley.
“Indeed, a very old one, and they guard their name jealously. But even were we relations of the Earl’s, I do not think it would reflect either to our credit or to our discredit. Man’s will is free, as I have told you often, and we do not become elevated merely through having honourable relations, nor discredited through having dishonourable ones. God does not judge his children by their relations’ deeds, but by their own.”
“A very creditable attitude,” said Mr Bingley, taking a drink. “I suppose a real gentleman does not take much amiss, does he not, Charles? See to it that you follow Mr Ferrars’ example, and you will never go wrong. Remember that you are luckier than most in being an eldest -- an only -- son.”
“Indeed, I have no fears at all for your son,” said Edward, a little while later, after Charles had finished his meal and been sent to bed under his mother’s care. “He takes very little amiss, studies diligently, is amiable almost to a fault, and I have no doubt will have friends wherever he goes. As loath as I am to say it, seeing how it reflects on my own position, I think he would do very well at a good school. He wants the company of other boys his age, more than can be provided here, and his health seems to me as good as any boy’s could be.”
“Of course, of course,” said Mr Bingley, looking into the dregs in his glass. It was early December and the room was very dark. “He likely would enjoy it. But his mother …”
Edward’s heart twisted to think of how utterly mother and son loved each other, and how little Mrs Bingley cared for anything but to see her son happy.
The week before Christmas saw the arrivals of Charles’s sisters Louisa and Caroline, who were one and three years older than he and had already been given a hard, shining glaze by their school. They knitted their eyebrows, whispered strange slangy words to each other, and tittered remorselessly. Once, as he tried to slip unobtrusively past them on a stairwell, Louisa giggled and asked “Do you still have the silken rope, Mr Ferrers? I asked my brother but he said you denied everything.”
“A silken — excuse me?”
“They hanged Earl Ferrers with a silken rope!” she said, and both girls went off into gales of giggles. “Surely it must be a family heirloom? Perhaps you could sell it, if you are in enough need that you must be a tutor.”
Edward was not so much embarrassed as greatly confused. He was acutely conscious that his little store of money was not inexhaustible, that he travelled nowhere, that he calculated the price of proper clothing down to the farthing, paid one of the maids to darn his old stockings and had worn his coats now longer than he would like — but why would his poverty matter to these girls?
However, feeling he must make some response, he said merely “Whether a hanging rope is hemp or silk, a gentleman would never contemplate selling such a disgraceful article, even if it were to be in his possession. Now, Miss Bingley, Miss Caroline, I require some books and must beg you not to delay me any longer.”
The girls were quieted and looked after him with curiosity but, thankfully, without any more giggling.
The books were not the only thing he sought; he had had several letters brought to him by a footman earlier and had had no chance to open them. Once in the blessed silence of his room, he began cutting them open, until he paused at the sight of his direction, written in Fanny’s hand.
He had heard nothing from any of his family ever since he had left, and had been so occupied himself in teaching that he had not realized how much time had passed without a word. Now unfolded the sheet rapidly, both dreading and hoping for any news that might be within. How long had it been since he had had any word from someone in his old life — seven months? Eight?
The word, as it happened, was disappointingly thin and slight. She stiffly wished him a merry Christmas, then endeavoured to stifle all merriment by telling him of how his mother still wept and sighed with disappointment and anger at him for having so betrayed his family. “She has forgiven Robert,” wrote Fanny, “Although not the woman. She is justly angry at you for ever having brought her to our family’s attention, but if you were to write to her, and be repentant, I think she may forgive you. I think you have done nothing to earn such, but Mamma is very tenderhearted and will not leave off raging at me about you.” She had nothing to say about her husband’s sisters except a few lines to the effect that they were staying in Devonshire for Christmas, as it was not convenient to have them as guests in London just now, especially as they feared it might be too much for Miss Marianne’s health.
Well, at least he knew they were all still living. Fanny’s letter was no great inducement to repent, nor indeed to write back, but he should at least send a line to her know that he too was still well. By evening’s end, he had a short, cool, reply written and sealed, thanking Fanny for her good wishes, saying that he did not feel it incumbent upon himself to be forgiven for anything and was content where he was. He also begged to be remembered to the Dashwoods the next time she saw them, although he had few hopes that she would do so.
Next to that letter lay another letter to his college, inquiring after any livings that may have become vacant. He had written to them punctually, every month, but had few hopes, especially as he could not be there himself to possibly meet with patrons, or to remind the university dons of his existence. Mr Bingley was a wealthy man, but of course it was all from wool — there was no question of his having an advowson or even of knowing someone who had, although he clearly hoped for young Charles to have such friends in a few years’ time. Edward thought of stories he had heard about men who waited five, ten, twenty years for a living, men whose families paid handsome premiums for livings, men who never obtained livings — his mouth twisted wryly as he remembered a forty-year-old fellow named Jenks who had finally obtained one of the university’s livings a few years earlier by the unfortunate method of being so disagreeable that he was given the living simply to make him depart. But come! Despair was a sin whether or not one’s income was great, and in his nightly prayers Edward always was careful to thank the Lord for having led him to a position which, if humble, was honourable and well-situated. It did not do always simply to be asking.
Christmas was duly celebrated, with Edward taking comfort in the service and later uneasily seated far down at the family table and retreating to his room as soon as possible; he would not be welcome in the servants’ hall and did not care to be in a corner as the Misses Bingley danced about and brought the silent pianoforte to life. But it was not a bad time, nonetheless, for he was given a great quantity of food to bring up with him, and later, as he nibbled a mince pie and wrote letters to his Oxford friends, Charles knocked on his door a little shyly, then presented him with an orange so large and handsome even Edward’s mother could not have found fault with it. “I thought you might like it,” blurted Charles. “Merry Christmas!” And away he dashed, tongue-tied for perhaps the first time in his life.
The New Year came in, the Misses Bingley returned to their school, and life took up its old rhythm again. He would have been lonely had his hours not been so occupied with teaching or preparing to teach, and Charles had the energy of five boys in one. But he spent a great deal of time in his own room, for he was not always invited to the table, and he was yet more out of place in the servants’ hall. Occasionally the housekeeper, Mrs McGill, was kind enough to invite him to her sitting room for tea, and when Mrs Bingley’s maid Dujardin was present, he would speak with her in French. Dujardin was polite but reserved as even Elinor — Miss Dashwood — had never been. It was pleasant to converse with a young woman whom one respected but for whom one felt no spark of affection, even if it unfortunately made him long once again for Elinor, and even occasionally think he saw her, stepping out of a carriage or walking in a crowd. Dujardin appeared to have left her affections behind her when she had fled France, and upon learning that he aspired to be a clerc protestant, saw no reason to be more than ordinarily gracious. Still, with his world so shrunk since last year, he was grateful for the company. His old life felt very distant now.
At least, it felt distant in the day. In the night, he began to wake up, again and again, as the nearby church clock struck one or two in the morning. Often he could not remember what he had dreamed, but other times he caught escaping fragments of Fanny’s and his mother’s voices. Once Lucy was imploring him to come back and he was agreeing despite knowing, somehow, that he could no longer marry him because she had married someone else. Another time he saw Elinor — Miss Dashwood — and they were talking in their old, easy way until he spied a ring with a twist of hair in it on her finger, and then he realised it was his own. But Miss Dashwood laughed and insisted that it was hers, and that she loved the man the hair had come from. That dream sent him rummaging through his trunk, unable to find the old ring he had had from Lucy and which she had told him he was welcome to keep. What had he done with it? Finally he gave up, snuffed out his candle and went back to bed. What did it matter, after all?
The next day he spoke rather vehemently to Charles on the subject of relics and making false idols of objects, but as he was teaching on the Reformation, there was nothing very surprising about that.
Summer arrived it, and with it another letter from Fanny. This brought the news that little Harry was now starting Latin with his own tutor, and that Lucy had now been admitted to Mrs Ferrars’ presence after begging forgiveness, and that the latter had found it in her heart to tolerate her. “Mamma bears up wonderfully well.” Edward was also graciously informed that should he choose to give up his employment, he would be welcome to be a guest at Norland, “And Mamma would perhaps visit as well. She misses you greatly.” She said nothing about any of the Dashwoods.
“I cannot give up my employment for a hope of forgiveness, of which I am not in need,” Edward wrote back to her. “But I am pleased to hear that you are all so well. I hope that John’s sisters are also well.”
Mrs Bingley’s continued concern for the health of everyone but herself meant that the summer was spent sea-bathing at Scarborough — Edward had not expected to be brought with the family, but Mr Bingley was insistent. “You are an excellent influence on Charles,” he said, “And he cannot speak too elegantly or know too much of what it means to be a gentleman.” Edward wondered briefly what response he would have should he insist on a holiday of his own, but he had no objection to sea-bathing, nor did he have anywhere else to go. He would have been welcomed by his Oxford friends, but he had little wish to undertake such a long and costly journey unless it were for some purpose stronger than merely seeing agreeable friends for a little while. Norland was even further away, and he would not be welcome there unless his departure from Yorkshire was permanent. So he spent his days exploring the history of the seaside with Charles and, when the maidservants and Dujardin could take no more of them, both Misses Bingley.
Late autumn brought another letter from Fanny, this one with the news that at long last, she was expecting a second child, due in the springtime. He said a silent prayer that all would be well, for as little sympathy as he and Fanny had with each other, he knew she had suffered many disappointments since little Harry. Johnstone, who was now doing well enough tutoring Oxford men that he no longer wished to leave for the sake of a living, wrote to Edward mentioning that he had heard of an incumbency very likely soon to be vacant (“It is perfectly miraculous how delicately they manage to tell us that the man will be in his grave within the year”), but the holder of the advowson wanted a thousand pounds, and that for a living which brought only one hundred and twenty-five pounds per annum — as much as he was making now, except that he would have to spend half his inherited funds in order to obtain it. He would still be a few pounds richer per annum if he did so, and he would have the post for life — if he was really to be forever exiled from his family and their fortune (and on such grounds, he could not help resentfully thinking) it would be better to take his own future in hand before young Charles outgrew his need for a tutor.
But the reply from Johnstone was regretful. Edward had been too late; there would be no need to write to his bankers, as while he considered and his letter then wended southward, another man had snapped up the living in the interim.
Christmas once again brought the Misses Bingley, but they no longer regarded their brother’s tutor as a novelty and said little enough to him except on one occasion, when Miss Caroline decided to air her very rapid French to him as she entered Charles’s schoolroom in search of an easel. Edward knew a trick worth two of that, however, and answered her so fluently that she ended by giggling, reddening, and fleeing the room without the easel. Both girls seemed to have improved markedly on the pianoforte since last Christmas, so for all their disagreeable aspects it seemed that they could be as diligent as their brother when they chose.
January brought the news that Johnstone had married. “I hope you will not become altogether buried in the north,” he said, “For I would like to see you again before I have become a grandfather.” Edward wrote sincere congratulations but could make only the vaguest of promises to visit sometime in the next few years.
March brought another growth spurt to Charles, who was now unmistakably on his way to becoming a young man, and his father began to talk to more forcefully about sending him to school. Edward could not but see the justice of this; Charles was as prepared as Edward could make him, and for the greatest peril of school life, the rivalries and alliances between the pupils, he was one of the best-equipped young men Edward had ever seen — far better-equipped than he had been. Edward began to consider what he should do once his services were no longer required and, patient with his lot as he tried to be, could not help gritting his teeth when he thought of how much his future depended on another man giving him a good character.
April brought a strange deliverance, in a letter addressed in a hand he did not recognize. It was from Colonel Brandon of Delaford in Dorset, offering him the living of the Delaford church. The former incumbent had died in the previous month, and the colonel begged forgiveness for his slowness in writing, but he had needed to obtain Edward’s direction first. The living was worth two hundred a year, and he regretted that it was not greater, but hoped that Edward would accept and would find it to his liking. “For from my memory of our meetings in London, some two years back, I am confident that you will be an excellent rector and a blessing for our parish, and my wife concurs in this.” If Edward accepted, Brandon would welcome him to Delaford as soon as he could be ordained, and the papers could be signed then.
Edward was grateful, amazed, and concerned. He remembered almost nothing of his meetings with Brandon, though he did have a vague impression of the man — grave, somewhat older, talking little. Those months had been so filled with tumult that Edward to his own surprise could not now remember even half the people he had seen or what they had said, so it was likely he had spoken more with the Colonel than he remembered. But why should the Colonel keep him in memory for two years, and offer him the benefice? My wife concurs. Elinor. Of course, Brandon had been a friend of the Middletons, and thus of the Dashwoods. He had been with them a great deal that winter in London. Why should Elinor not have formed another attachment? And if she had done so, clearly she had asked her husband to give him this gift. Her friendship for him had endured although he had done nothing to encourage it. To turn this down would not only be rash, but ungrateful.
He reached for his inkwell and paper. He had two letters to write — no, three. One to Johnstone, asking him to solicit a meeting with Dr Smallwell, one to Colonel Brandon, politely accepting, and a third to Fanny, to tell her that he was at last ceasing his employment and returning south, but at his own wish rather than their mother’s. He would stop at Norland on his way to Delaford, for after all he still longed sometimes to see his family. Harry had doubtless been learning a great deal from his own tutor, and the baby would, God willing, be safely arrived by the time he came.
He did not leave the Bingleys until June. Arrangements must be made for Charles, who was voluble in his regrets for his tutor’s leaving but whose eyes shone at the prospect of a school, full of other boys. Now that it came to it, Edward began to worry about leaving. His life in Yorkshire had not been a bad one, and he hoped very much that Charles would keep his promise of writing letters once he was at school. And while he did not fear the examination for ordination (Dr Smallwell’s reputation was not the harshest, and even had he been, Edward felt prepared after two years of drilling Charles in Greek) he found himself more and more apprehensive. My wife concurs. How could it not be Elinor? And how could it not have crossed his mind to ask Fanny about it, when he had written to her? But Fanny seldom said anything about the Dashwood girls, she had not mentioned any marriage at all. Perhaps after all, it was not one of them.
That hope was promptly dashed after a long, hot journey to Oxford, where once again he stayed with Johnstone, whose wife, a pretty girl from the south, had cousins named Carey living near Barton Park. “Colonel Brandon?” said Mrs Johnstone at next morning’s breakfast. “I have never met him, but I believe my cousin Anne mentioned something in a letter about his marrying a Miss — I am not sure of the name.”
“Dashwood?” asked Edward, his heart sinking, but determined to know.
“That was the name! You know the family, then?”
“I did at one time,” said Edward, looking into his teacup. “But it has been some years.”
Johnstone gave him a sharp look, but said nothing.
Dr Smallwell’s examination was no more demanding than Edward had expected — rather disappointing, in fact, as he had hoped to be able to quote an obscure passage or demonstrate his facility with a particularly tricky bit of grammar, but he was now ordained, and as another carriage rattled its way inexorably towards Norland, Fanny, his new nephew, and (pray God) no Robert or Lucy, he began to consider life as a rector at Delaford. Three hundred pounds a year, for a bachelor, felt luxurious now, and would afford him a couple of servants, but it could be supplemented nonetheless. Why not take in pupils? He had greatly enjoyed teaching, if not the circumstances which drove him to it, and a handful of pupils could add to his income considerably. He would need a good housekeeper, for they would need good care and much occupation so that they would not be idle prey for the likes of Lucy. Three or four pupils a year, a reasonable fee, and over time he could add a little to his principal along with the remnants of his salary from the Bingleys … he might, after all, want to marry some day … but no. He could preach with Elinor and her husband in the pews, but he could not marry another while she was there. A housekeeper, then.
Norland looked much the same as it had three years earlier; Fanny’s hoped-for improvements seemed to be proceeding more slowly than she might have wished, and he was pleased to see that the woods Miss Marianne so loved were still there. After a maid showed Edward into the parlour, John Dashwood hastened in, as affable as if Edward had never been banished at all. “How very good to see you, Edward! We are happy that you have found yourself such a pleasant situation after all the unpleasantness, and I know Fanny and her dear mother both wish very much to see you. But come, I will show you your room first — I have sent a couple of men to bring up your trunk.”
The room was large and lovely, and Edward could not help wondering where little Harry’s tutor was bestowed. But there was no time to ponder, for John was now leading him down another hallway. “Fanny will be delighted to see you, she still keeps to her room, but she does very well. Young John is very large and healthy, we think he greatly resembles his uncle — I mean, Robert. And my sister is visiting, the better to assist Fanny, as her mother is of course no longer equal to such things. She is sleeping now — your mother, I mean — but she will see you at supper.”
And with that, John opened a door and there in an armchair by a bed sat Fanny, with a nursemaid standing next to her and Elinor handing her a baby which had evidently been newly swaddled and was still objecting loudly. Edward felt dizzy for a moment, then drew on his resolve. He must be firm. This would not be their last meeting, after all. But Elinor quickly curtsied, murmured “Mr Ferrars,” and slipped out of the room, leaving him alone with Fanny and the nursemaid. Strange, he thought, that Fanny should have requested Elinor’s help rather than that of one of her younger, unattached sisters — but Fanny had never liked Marianne, and Margaret might still be too young.
He cleared his throat, and asked after his sister’s health.
After fifteen minutes of polite but uncommunicative conversation, in which little John’s handsome looks and good health were several times complimented, and Fanny pointedly refrained from asking a solitary question about anything he had done during the last two years, the baby began to fret a little and Fanny fluttered her fingers before her mouth in a small yawn.
It was time. He stood up and begged to take his leave, saying then “I was hoping to speak for a moment with Mrs Brandon.”
Fanny’s face was a blank. “Marianne? She is not here, she is at Delaford. Did you think she had come here?”
“Not Marianne, Mrs Brandon.”
“Marianne is Mrs Brandon, Edward. Did nobody inform you? But then, I have been ill, and I do not suppose John remembered to write. He never thinks of anyone unless they are standing in front of him.”
Edward sat down again, gripping the arm of his chair so as not to have an undignified collapse. “I thought — I heard only that he had married Miss Dashwood — I thought that he and Elinor —“
“To be sure, I also thought he would have done better to marry Elinor,” said Fanny, patting little John on the back. “She is a practical, helpful girl, and she was never half so wild and rude as Marianne. The way Marianne scolded Mamma, and in front of company! And Brandon was there as well, he saw every moment of it. I was quite shocked when I heard of their engagement, but John was pleased, the colonel is worth two thousand a year if not more, he is well worth knowing.”
“Did Marianne ask her husband to offer me the living?”
“Oh! I do not know about that, perhaps she did, or perhaps it was one of the others — those three sisters always put their heads together about every thing.”
“Then I must go and thank Miss Dashwood for all three of them.”
“Do so,” said Fanny, and then, as he was leaving, her sharp voice called out, “I think Mamma will be thankful that you have chosen no worse.”
He almost ran out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first he thought would never cease. He was obliged to hasten to his own room lest a servant or other inhabitant of Norland should see him, and it was fully half an hour before he felt equal to emerging.
None of the servants knew where Miss Dashwood — Miss! — might be, John was not to be found, and Edward had no wish to look for his mother. Thinking of the little woods, he thought to try his luck there; perhaps Miss Dashwood — Elinor — would want to walk in them, to report to her sister how the trees fared.
It felt an age but was no more than minutes before he saw her sitting on a bench by the edge of the wood, apparently deeply engaged with a book. All at once the memory of their last meeting rushed back, and the mere memory of how ashamed he had been was enough to bring the blood to his face. He must not assume anything, not even friendship — but surely he would not now have his new living if Elinor did not feel a little kindly towards him?
She looked up as he approached and then stood. For a moment he thought she would leave, but instead she merely dipped into another brief curtsey as he bowed. “Miss Dashwood. I cannot tell you — I mean, I am so very pleased to see you again.”
“Thank you, I am pleased to see you as well. Do sit.” He took his place on the bench next to her and looked ahead. Both were silent.
“I am glad that the woods are still here,” said Edward at last. “I know my sister has designs on them.”
“She does, but fortunately they are yet spared.”
There was another silence. He did not dare to look to his right to try and catch her eye.
“May I ask what you have been reading?”
“Mr Miller’s Gardener’s Dictionary.”
“That sounds very practical.”
“It is. We have a garden at Barton Cottage.”
Another pause, then Elinor said, “Would you care to read a passage aloud? My sister is not here to criticise your performance.”
Edward finally looked over and she was smiling as she handed him the book. Did she really — but if she wanted it, he would. He summoned his best lecturing voice.
“PHASEOLUS. The first sort is an annual plant; the seeds of this were brought from Carolina, where it grows naturally. The stalks of this twine about any common support like those of the common Kidney-bean; they are hairy, and rise four or five feet high —“
Elinor, who had been covering her mouth, finally burst into a fit of laughter, but Edward assumed a more solemn tone as he read on about this relation of the common kidney bean. By the time he was declaiming that they must be grown in large pots filled with light earth, Elinor was almost weeping with laughter and he ceased to read, finally asking. “Has my reading improved since I so disgraced my family by tutoring?”
She dabbed at her eyes. “I do not think Marianne would approve of the book, but I think you have improved immensely.”
“Of course,” said Edward. “It is not everyone who has her passion for dead leaves.”
Elinor raised her eyebrows. “Indeed. And how did you care for teaching? Was it an adventure, going to the wilds of the north?”
“Perhaps not an adventure as I seldom stirred from the city, but it is a beautiful place and I am glad to have seen it; I believe York Minster rivals anything in London and I had only one pupil, a very agreeable and intelligent boy. I believe that I may like to have a few more pupils once I have settled at Delaford; I should hate to give up teaching altogether.”
“Will you not be teaching a whole congregation from the pulpit every Sunday?”
“Yes, but I do not think they have much inclination to learn Greek or Latin.”
“I think it would be a very good thing if you were to be a schoolmaster as well as a rector — there are so many who teach ill that any man who finds he teaches well should do so, I think. But you need not rely entirely on that; from what Fanny has said, your mother intends to settle something on you. She was ashamed to hear what became of you and wishes to make you her son again.”
“Ashamed for me or for herself?”
“I dare not ask. She looks on me with a kinder eye than she used, but that is all. But I do not think you have any reason to be ashamed.”
“I do, though. I do not regret going north, but I wish I had written to your mother. I could think only of you, but I could not write to you. I did not want to prolong our farewell, and I did not expect ever to be able to offer you anything. I only wrote to Fanny, and she told me very little. But I see now how you and your sisters must have kept me in friendship, although it never came to me that I could write to your mother, and so send word of my doings to you. I ashamed that I fled our friendship, but I thought I did it for your sake.”
Elinor was silent for a few moments. “I understand, I think. I will not deny that I was dismayed at hearing nothing from you once we had word of Lucy and Robert’s marriage — I must tell you some time how that happened! — but when Fanny told us you had left for York I was sure that you meant to free me. We had already said our farewells in London, after all. I will confess it, I several times prevented my mother from sending you a letter. She wanted dreadfully to invite you to Barton, and I did not want her to burden you with an invitation you might not have been able to accept even had you been so inclined, or offers of help. She thinks five hundred a year is very little, you see, and of course for us it is, but she did not understand how different was your situation even from ours.”
Her hand, he noticed, was ungloved, the more easily to read. He slipped off his own glove, and she turned and put her hand in his.
“I do not ask anything of you now,” he said. “It has been such a long time. But might we not resume our friendship? We will likely be seeing a great deal more of each other now, and —“
“We shall, and not only here, for I am to visit Marianne at Delaford when my visit here is concluded. Surely John would prefer that we travel there together, to save time and expense in lending a carriage. And now, I must return to the house, for I have no doubt Fanny and both our nephews will be wanting me.”
“Then I shall return with you.” He rose alongside her and although she dropped his hand, she easily took his proffered arm. “How does Marianne at Delaford?”
“It has been only a few months, but she sounds very merry in her letters. She is planning a ball and insists that I should stay long enough to attend, and possibly to attend her second ball as well.”
“A ball! I should like to dance with you.”
“So should I. How is it that we have never danced together?”
“A fault so grave should be remedied as soon as possible. There is no other possible end.”
In response Elinor simply squeezed his arm slightly, but that was enough. In happy silence, they walked back towards Norland together.