‘Why doesn’t Marianne have to come, then?’

Belle smiled across at her middle daughter. ‘I expect she’ll tell us why when we get back. Elinor?’

‘Yes, Ma.’

‘Do you think perhaps not jeans, for our first appearance at Barton Church?’

Kneeling in church, Elinor tried to focus on the things she had to be thankful for. Margaret might insist she hated her new school, but she was at least going every day and was not, as far as Elinor knew, playing truant. They had a roof over their heads in a lovely place with a landlord who might be slightly trying as a personality but who was unquestionably large-hearted. Her mother, though strangely unfocused without Fanny to battle with, was not visibly unhappy and from Monday week she, Elinor, would be employed, however modestly, in a structured and congenial company whose very occupation was as close to her heart as she could have hoped for.

It was unwise, she thought, shifting slightly on her unevenly stuffed hassock, to think too much about hearts. Marianne’s, always loftily removed from all the optimistic boys who had been in hot pursuit of her throughout her teenage years, appeared to have been given away, and gladly, eagerly, to a complete stranger in a matter of days. Elinor couldn’t but acknowledge that Wills scored incredibly highly on both looks and charm, and she was in no doubt that he was as besotted as Marianne, but something in her held back being able to rejoice fully with her mother and sister. She supposed, a little sadly, that her temperament just wasn’t designed to believe that nothing mattered in the world besides romantic love. Try as she might, she couldn’t convince herself that the world was well lost for love, or that a penniless life in a garret meant bliss as long as love was there as a substitute for warmth or food. Sometimes over the years she had looked at Marianne and envied her ability to abandon herself almost ecstatically to music, or place, or literature or – as so intensely in the present case – to love. It must be extraordinary, Elinor thought, to be able to surrender oneself so completely, not just because it would feel so exhilarating but also because it meant that one was – oh, how unlike me, Elinor thought regretfully – able to trust. Marianne could trust. She trusted her instincts; she trusted those dear to her; she trusted her emotions and her passions. She drank deep, you could see that; she squeezed every drop of living out of all the elements that mattered to her. It made her careless sometimes, of course it did, but it was a wonderfully rich and rapt way to be.

And I, Elinor said silently to herself, am not rich or rapt in the very slightest. So, although I can see that Wills is really beautiful, and delightful, I also kind of mistrust all that beauty, all those high spirits, and think unjust, quelling thoughts about where does his money come from and why doesn’t he need to get back to work and why does he beguile us with questions instead of telling us anything about himself? We know nothing, really. It’s all hearsay, sort of fairy-tale inheritance stuff that belongs in a novel, not the real world. And suppose he just really fancies Marianne, and it isn’t real love? Suppose it’s just sex? I wouldn’t blame him, I wouldn’t blame either of them, but Marianne, being so absolutely wholehearted, can’t separate love and sex and she might get hurt. Which I, for all my dreary cautiousness and prudence, could not bear. She’s never fallen this hard, not ever. And there’s just a little cold part of me that doesn’t have any faith in what’s going on.

Which is probably a bigger cold part than I want to admit, and pretty off-putting to the world in general, because Ed hasn’t been in touch since we got here. Nothing. Not a text or a call or an email. Nothing. And I am not contacting him. I am absolutely not. In fact, I have deleted his number from my phone and I have defriended him on Facebook, because although I don’t really want to do either, I have to take charge of the things I can take charge of, and removing myself from contact with him is one of those things, however pathetic. I’ve got to protect myself. Or, to be truthful, I have got to be able to tell myself that I’m at least trying to. I may have felt more comfortable with him than I ever have with anyone, but I am not laying myself open to any more pain or disappointment than comes my way any more. If he’s dumped me – and I’m not sure, if I’m honest, that we ever really got to the level you could be dumped from – then he just has, and I’d better get over it. If he’s met someone else, then he has. I’m not going to cry over him – or at least, I’m not going to cry except in strict, strict privacy – and I’m not going to waste time and energy thinking about him. I’m not. I get fed up with the number of times he occurs to me, every day, but I won’t encourage it. I will get on with what there is to get on with, one foot in front of another—‘How much longer?’ Margaret hissed beside her.

Elinor didn’t look at her. She kept her eyes closed.

‘Two more prayers,’ she whispered. ‘One more hymn.’

Margaret leaned closer. ‘I bet when we get back, they’ll have gone off somewhere and I won’t get a ride in his car today either.’ She paused and then muttered vehemently, ‘It’s not fair.’

The Aston was, surprisingly, still outside the cottage when they got back, walking across the park from the church with Belle cajoling Margaret to admire the view, and the weather, and the prospect of a roast chicken for lunch. Margaret was immediately excited to see the car, and began to run towards it, squealing, so that Elinor, impelled by some instinct that she couldn’t immediately identify, began to run too, catching at Margaret’s sleeve.

‘Stop, Mags, stop!’

‘Why? Why should I?’

Elinor dragged her sister to a halt. ‘Don’t, Mags.’

‘But he promised!’

Elinor glanced up at the cottage. It looked exactly as usual except that there was a distinct and unwelcome air, to Elinor’s perception, of something not being quite right. She held on to Margaret’s sleeve.

‘Just wait.’

‘Why? Why?’

‘I don’t know. Just – just let me go in first.’

‘You are so mean!’

Elinor turned as Belle came up. Belle said, ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing, maybe …’

Belle looked at the cottage. ‘We should make a noise, so that they—’

‘No,’ Elinor said. She let go of Margaret. ‘No. I’ll just go in first. Quietly.’

‘Darling, what’s all the drama?’

‘It may be nothing,’ Elinor said.

She walked towards the front door, leaving her mother and sister standing by the car. Margaret laid a reverent hand on the bonnet. She said, in surprise, ‘It’s still warm!’

Belle was watching Elinor. ‘So he hasn’t been here long.’

Elinor put her key into the lock and turned it. As the door opened and Elinor went in, Belle saw, quite plainly, Marianne dash sobbing out of the sitting room and rush towards the stairs and then the door swung shut behind Elinor and left Belle and Margaret standing there, beside the car.

‘I can’t explain,’ Wills said.

To his credit, he looked as stricken as Marianne had. He was standing on the hearthrug, on the very spot he had stood after rescuing Marianne from the thunderstorm, but this time he looked almost cowed, Elinor thought, beaten. His hair looked lank and his face was suddenly the face of someone both older and sadder.

From the doorway, Elinor repeated, slightly louder, ‘What’s happened?’

Wills made a limp gesture with one hand, as if whatever it was had been both incomprehensible and also impossible to avoid or repair. ‘Just – something.’

‘What, Wills, what? What did you say to Marianne?’

Elinor heard the front door open again behind her.

‘That – that I’ve got to go back to London.’

‘Why? Why have you, on a Sunday, all of a sudden?’

‘I just have to.’

Elinor sensed Belle and Margaret coming up right behind her. ‘Did you have a row?’ she demanded.

He shrugged.

‘Did you?’

Belle put a tentative hand on Elinor’s arm. ‘Darling …’

Elinor shrugged her off. ‘Did you have a row, Wills? Did you upset your aunt?’

He sighed.

‘I’ll take it as a yes,’ Elinor said. ‘Was it about Marianne? Was it about yesterday?’

He raised his head slowly and looked at them all. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Is that the truth?’

‘Yes!’ he said, almost shouting. ‘It has nothing to do with Marianne!’

Belle pushed past her daughters. She crossed to the fireplace and put a hand on Wills’s sleeve.

‘Stay here, dear Wills, you’d be so welcome.’

He gazed down at her, his eyes full of tragedy. ‘I can’t.’

‘Of course you can! You can have Mags’s room.’

‘I’ve got to go back to London.’

Margaret said, in amazement, ‘Are you being sent?’

He attempted a lopsided grin. ‘Sort of.’

‘But she can’t.’

‘She can.’

‘Because’, Elinor asked pitilessly, ‘she pays the bills?’

He looked immediately uncomfortable. He said, hesitantly, ‘This isn’t about that.’

‘Then what?’

He seemed to pull himself together. He said, ‘I can’t tell you. I can’t tell Marianne. But none of this, none of it, has anything to do with her. She’s—’ He stopped and then he said, ‘I’m really sorry but I’ve got to go.’

Belle was still touching him. She said earnestly, looking up at him, ‘Till when?’

He paused and firmly disengaged himself. And then he said bitterly, to no one in particular, ‘I wish I knew.’

‘Please eat something,’ Belle said pleadingly.

Marianne had her elbows on the table, planted either side of her untouched plate, and her head in her hands. ‘Can’t.’

‘Just a mouthful, darling, just a—’

‘Can I have her roast potatoes?’ Margaret said.

Elinor, who wasn’t hungry either, put a piece of unwanted chicken in her mouth and chewed. Marianne pushed her plate towards Margaret.

‘Can I?’ Margaret said eagerly, spearing potatoes.

Elinor swallowed her chicken. She said quietly to Marianne, ‘What did he actually say to you?’

Marianne shook her head and put her hands over her eyes.

‘M, he must have said something. He must have said why he couldn’t—’

Marianne sprang up suddenly and fled from the room. They heard her feet thudding up the stairs and then the slam of her bedroom door.

‘You told me’, Margaret said through a mouthful of potato, ‘not to ask her anything, so I didn’t, and then you go and do it.’

‘It must be Jane Smith,’ Belle said to Elinor, ignoring Margaret. ‘She must disapprove.’

‘Why should she?’

‘Well, we’ve got no money.’

‘Ma,’ Elinor said angrily, banging her knife and fork down, ‘this isn’t 1810, for God’s sake. Money doesn’t dictate relationships.’

‘It does for some people. Look at Fanny.’

‘He loves her,’ Elinor said, as if her mother hadn’t spoken. ‘He’s as crazy about her as she is about him.’

‘He’ll be back. I know he will. He’ll ring Marianne. He’s probably rung her already.’

‘Then why’, Margaret said, ‘does she keep crying?’

Elinor pushed her chair back. ‘I’m going to talk to her.’

Belle sighed. ‘Be gentle.’

Elinor paused for a second; then she bit back whatever had occurred to her to say and went out of the kitchen and up the stairs to the landing. She tapped on Marianne’s door. ‘M?’

‘Go away.’

Elinor tried the handle. The door was locked. ‘Please let me in.’

‘No.’

‘I want to talk.’

‘Talking won’t help. Nothing will help.’

Elinor waited a moment, her cheek almost against the door, and then she said, ‘Has he rung?’

Silence.

‘Have you rung him?’

Silence.

‘Or texted?’

There was a stifled something from the far side of the door.

‘Oh, Marianne,’ Elinor said, ‘please let me in. Please.’

She could hear a faint shuffling as if Marianne was approaching the door.

‘M?’

From behind the door, Marianne said hoarsely, ‘You can’t help. No one can. Aunt Jane threw him out just like Fanny did Edward. You ought to understand, if anyone can. You ought.’

Elinor waited a moment and then she said, as quietly as she could, ‘M. Is it – over?’

There was a long, long silence and then Marianne hissed through the keyhole, ‘Don’t say that. Don’t say that. Ever.’