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 sighed. ‘It’s just depressing’, she said, ‘to spend a whole evening with people who are all so – utterly uncongenial.’
‘Bill Brandon wasn’t, was he? I thought he was charming.’
‘Of course you did, Ma. He’d be perfect for you. Right age, nice manners, even reads—’
‘Stop it. He’s much younger than me!’
Marianne tweaked her mother’s toes under the duvet. ‘No one is younger than you, Ma.’
Belle ignored her. She leaned forward. ‘Darling.’
‘What?’
Belle lowered her voice. ‘Any – sign of Edward?’
Marianne shook her head. ‘Don’t think so.’
‘Has she said anything?’
‘No.’
‘Have you asked her?’
‘Ma,’ Marianne said, reprovingly, ‘I wouldn’t. Would I?’
‘But it’s so odd.’
‘He is odd.’
‘I thought …’
‘I know.’
‘D’you think Fanny’s stopping him?’
Marianne got slowly to her feet. ‘I doubt it. He’s quite stubborn in his quiet way.’
‘Well?’
Marianne looked down at her. ‘We can’t do anything, Ma.’
‘Couldn’t you text him?’
‘No, Ma, I could not.’
Belle picked up her book again. ‘Your sister is a mystery to me. It breaks my heart to leave Norland but not, apparently, hers. We are completely thrown by arriving here and finding ourselves miles from anywhere and she just goes on putting the herbs and spices in alphabetical order as if nothing is any different except the layout of the cupboards. And now Edward. Does she really not care about Edward?’
Marianne looked down at her mug again. ‘She’s made up her mind about missing him, like she’s made up her mind about giving up her course. She won’t let herself despair about things she can’t have, and doesn’t waste her energies longing for things like I do. She thinks before she feels, Ma, you know she does. I expect she does sort of miss Ed, in her way.’
‘Her way?’
Marianne moved towards the door. She said, decisively, ‘But her way isn’t my way. Any more than those stupid people tonight were my kind of people. I want – I want …’
She stopped. Belle let a beat fall, and then she said, ‘What do you want, darling?’
Marianne put her hand on the doorknob, and turned to face her mother. ‘I want to be overwhelmed,’ she said.
The following morning Sir John, blithely oblivious to any reservations his guests might have had about their evening at Barton Park, sent Thomas in the Range Rover to collect them all for a tour of his offices and design studio. Margaret, in particular, was appalled.
‘I’m not looking at pictures of those gross clothes!’
‘And I’, Marianne said, loudly enough for Thomas not to mistake her distaste, ‘am not modelling them either, thank you very much.’
Thomas, who was leaning against a kitchen counter with the tea Belle had made him, said imperturbably, ‘I don’t think you have an option.’
They all stared at him.
‘You mean we have to?’
‘Yup,’ Thomas said. He grinned at Margaret. ‘He’s the boss round here. Lady M. and Mrs J. make a fair bit of noise but they end up doing what they’re told.’ He took a gulp of tea. ‘We all do.’
‘So,’ Marianne said, twisting her hair up into a knot and then letting it cascade over her shoulders, ‘he’s kind of bought us?’
Thomas shrugged.
‘There isn’t a bad bone in his body. But he likes people around him; he likes people to like what he likes. And he likes the business. We all like what we’re good at.’
Belle looked at Margaret. ‘Find some shoes, darling.’
‘But I—’
‘Shoes,’ Belle said. ‘And perhaps brush your hair?’
Elinor said, trying to be truthful while not betraying the acuteness of their situation to Thomas, ‘We could do with some – well, work, couldn’t we?’
Belle glanced at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean …’ Elinor said, fidgeting with the buttons on her cardigan, ‘I mean, if the design studio could use you in some way, and Marianne and Margaret were sort of – of needed for the catalogue, it would be kind – kind of helpful?’
Belle turned to look at her fully. ‘To whom?’
Elinor stood a little straighter. ‘Us.’
‘In what way exactly?’
Elinor observed that Thomas was deliberately concentrating on his tea. She said, quietly, ‘Money, Ma.’