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Miss Dashwood and Colonel Brandon were taking a turn about the garden together, as they were frequently given to do some three weeks into her stay at Delaford. Mrs. Dashwood smiled on them from the open window of Marianne’s sick room, her hands busy with her sewing.
They had originally intended to stop at Delaford for just a single night on their way home from London, but Marianne had begun to suffer a deep, wracking cough that same evening. She had been so worn by her troubled heart as of late—sleeping poorly, eating little, moving listlessly—that she had seemed bound to become stricken with something. That had been one of Elinor’s reasons for removing her from London, though it seemed travel had hurt Marianne’s chances rather than helped them.
The cough had soon proved serious, their mother had been fetched from Devonshire, and it had been a long recovery and the slow budding of March blooms ever since. And in Elinor’s estimation, Colonel Brandon had not made the least move to rush them along. Rather the opposite.
At some recent juncture—it was quite difficult to say precisely when—his prompt attention to Marianne seemed to have become a means to convey his deepening regard for Elinor. He was wonderfully attentive. One could not ask for a better host, bed-ridden sister or no. He was considerate, generous, unprying. He was that rare specimen who possessed the three foremost virtues in Elinor’s world: good sense, a mind for money matters, and a deep well of feeling. He was an irreproachable gentleman, his penchant for forming attachments with penniless women notwithstanding.
For his own part, Colonel Brandon found his heart changed by the unexpected honor of spending so much undivided time with the Dashwoods. He had never before spent more than five hours together in their company. They were a merry, affectionate, and honest sort. This he had known. But there were things that he had not known. During their lengthy stay in his home, the shortcomings of one sister had made themselves apparent, while the charms of another sister now proved overpowering. Elinor was free of the constant little slights that were so a part of Marianne’s manner. For Marianne forever wore her true feelings, and one’s true feelings were the most common cause of personal offense.
And upon closer observation, Elinor was a lovely woman possessing her own varied set of needs and wants and feelings. She merely hid them much better. Which, in the end, was what made it so very rewarding to be allowed to help.
To be of use to a woman such as that… was the finest occupation in all the world.
Elinor was not insensible of this development, though she still woke up each morning stunned by it, and was rocked once more by each new piece of proof. The difference could be observed in where Colonel Brandon’s eyes strayed as he first entered a room and again in where his eyes lingered when he left.
She was no songbird. She was no great beauty. And as they were all now learning, she did not need to be.
As for Colonel Brandon’s charms—well.
She trusted him.
What more was there to be said? Of anyone?
When they were with one another, there was no need to linger over the details of the weather unduly. Presently, they were discussing the latest indignity in English tax law as they rounded the wide white bowl of a stone fountain.
“I understand your frustration, but I would rather a levy on burlap than a levy on linen. Which was Parliament’s original object.” Colonel Brandon, an even more devoted reader of the newspaper than herself, could say this with certainty.
“That is an excellent point. Though I suppose an excellent point on such matters is to be expected from someone as well-informed as yourself. Indeed, I struggle to recall a single silly thing that I have ever heard you say on the subject of money.”
“You are too generous in your praise of me,” he said. His eyes were steady on her as he inclined his head ever so slightly. “As always.”
Her pulse was in her throat, though no one would ever know it from her ready reply. “My apologies, Colonel. I shall try to be more economical in the future.”
His lips quirked, and his eyes sparkled with laughter. “That would be prudent, Miss Dashwood. But pray, do not tighten the purse strings unduly.” And then they swiftly began discussing the various pleasures of country living.
That was the beauty of it, in sum: they could really speak of things. From politics to the price of potatoes to the most precarious of family matters. Yet, on so many subjects, she need not tell him. He knew. And he knew because he cared to know.
But their time together at Delaford was drawing to a close. Marianne would be up and playing the pianoforte any day now. In fact, had Elinor not known any better, she would have wondered if Marianne was extending her bedrest on purpose. And still, this thing that grew between Elinor and Brandon did not yet dare to speak its own name.
They were debating the ideal number of dinner party guests when two raindrops darkened their path. They both looked up at the sky as another dozen drops fell.
Elinor ought to have known it would rain, for Marianne had declared just this morning that it would not.
They made haste for the hothouse. They were only a little damp by the time they took shelter inside. The rain was louder in here, pattering on every pane of the glass roof and patiently wiping it clean from its patina of pollen.
A touch winded by their flight, Elinor straightened her skirts and turned in a slow circle to look about herself. Watery light poured in from every wall, trickling in through a row of orange trees and tangles of grape leaves that were the size of dinnerplates. Beneath these established giants, there were apricots, pears, lemons, nectarines, hibiscus, and a young palm tree. The scent of hyacinth made for a strong enough perfume that she couldn’t even smell the hothouse furnace burning.
And at the end of her full turn, there was him. He stood, hat in hand, watching her with an almost unbearable softness in his eyes. “Miss Dashwood,” he said.
He paused for some time. There was only the sound of her heart in her ears, and underneath it, the rain.
“I have held you in the highest esteem for some months now, and over these past few weeks, I have come to regard you. The last thing—that last thing—I wish is to lose your good opinion of me. And yet, I must speak. May I pay my addresses to you?”
Elinor felt a touch faint. Her flush, already pulled to her cheeks from the dash to dry ground and the warmth of the room, built brightly. Not only at the words themselves, but at the way he spoke them. A deep well of feeling, indeed.
She said what had long been on her mind. “You flatter me immensely. But I do not possess what you once called ‘an impulsive sweetness of temper,’ and I was given to believe that such a temperament was more suitable to you.”
“In many ways, it is. But impulsiveness has its price, and I am finding that sweetness can be shown just as beautifully in a woman’s deliberate care. Lovely though your sister is, she is of a disposition that will always have something of a child in it. I do not seek another young charge to bring up, Miss Dashwood. I seek a partner, a companion, a confidante. In short—I seek a wife.”
There was no offence taken on the part of her sister in this, for he spoke only the truth and he did not speak it cruelly. “I understand you. But I had thought that you would cherish a young charge.”
“Does a man cherish only his charges?”
Elinor blushed. It was a long time before she replied.
The rain had not yet begun to really come down, but the warm air left the window panes gently steaming. She was sure that a servant would be along momentarily with a pair of umbrellas, as soon as someone realized that the two of them had either taken refuge from the rain or else had simply dissolved in it.
Colonel Brandon drummed his fingers one by one on the brim of his hat—too polite to pace, but too full of feeling to remain still.
She thought about what he was offering her. His heart, for one. The rest of him, for another. And his home, to top it all off. All she had to do was marry him. Him—a man she already liked very much and the contents of whose heart he had never given her reason to question. It seemed quite the bargain.
For Elinor, who had been playing lady-of-the-house behind the scenes at Barton Cottage and had done the same at Norland for many years before that, it would be an immense relief to rely on someone else for a change. It would also, at times, no doubt be quite an adjustment. She would simply have to strive to meet the challenge.
“I thought you felt only friendship for me,” she said at last.
“Until you came to Delaford… Until I realized how dearly I wished that you would not soon leave Delaford… I did.” He set his hat on the nearest table and lifted his chin a touch. “Meeting your sister taught me that perhaps it is not too late for me to find love. Your friendship taught me just what it is that I hope to find.”
They looked at each other.
A crack of thunder in the distance made them both startle, then laugh. First at themselves, next at each other, and then at the two of them together.
Once they had recovered themselves, Brandon took a step closer to her, hope shining softly from within him. “Tell me truly: you do not think less of me, for growing attached to another so easily?”
“Easily?” said she. Not unkindly, nor without some surprise. “Marianne offered you no encouragement these last seven months. She would not think less of you for a change of heart, and nor will I. Besides…” She shook her head a little and smiled at him. “How could I chide you for feeling for me what I feel for you?”
His breath visibly stilled in his chest. After a moment, he drew breath again and took another step towards her. He took her hands between his. And then—
The heavens opened up.