Sir John flung out an arm in the direction of the tall man, who had stood quietly by the immense marble fireplace without moving or uttering a word since they came in. ‘Meet my old mucker, girls. Belle, this is William Brandon. Late of the Light Dragoons. My regiment. My old dad’s regiment.’ He glanced at the tall man with sudden seriousness. ‘We were in Bosnia together, Bill and me. Weren’t we?’ He turned back to Belle. ‘And then he stayed in, and rose to command the regiment and now he devotes himself to good works, God help us, and comes here for a bit of normality and a decent claret. It’s his second home, eh Bill?’ He gestured to the tall man to come forward. ‘Come on, Bill, come on. That’s better. Now then, this is Colonel Brandon, Belle.’

She held out her hand, smiling. William Brandon stepped forward and took it, bowing a little. ‘Welcome to Devon.’

‘He’s so old,’ Marianne muttered to Elinor.

‘No, he isn’t, he looks—’

‘They’re all old. Old and old-fashioned and—’

‘Boring,’ Margaret said.

Mrs Jennings turned towards them. She looked at Margaret. She was laughing again. ‘What wouldn’t bore you, dear? Boys?’

Margaret went scarlet. Marianne put an arm round her.

‘Come on now,’ Abigail said. ‘There must be boys in your lives!’

Marianne stared at her. ‘None,’ she said.

‘One!’ Margaret blurted out.

‘Oh? Oh?’

‘Shut up, Mags.’

Colonel Brandon stepped forward and put a restraining hand on Abigail’s arm. He said to everyone else, soothingly, ‘How about I get everyone a drink?’

Belle looked at him gratefully. ‘I’d love one. And – and you play the guitar?’

‘Badly.’

‘Brilliantly!’ Sir John shouted. ‘He’s a complete pain in the arse!’

‘Would you play later?’ Colonel Brandon asked Marianne.

She didn’t look at him. She said, unhelpfully, ‘I didn’t bring my guitar.’

‘We 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.

5

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.’

‘Why’, Belle said, almost petulantly, ‘is that all you can ever think about?’

‘Because’, Elinor said, in the same low voice, ‘someone has to.’

‘But we’ve got—’

‘It’s not enough. Not for four people in a cottage in the middle of nowhere, one of whom has to start school on Wednesday.’

Margaret reappeared wearing grubby trainers with the laces undone. She said, loudly, ‘I don’t want to go to school.’

Thomas put his mug down with decision. He said to her, firmly, ‘It’s the law.’

‘Thank you,’ Elinor said.

Belle looked at Marianne. She said, with forced gaiety, ‘It looks like we’re outnumbered, darling!’

‘If you mean’, Elinor said with sudden exasperation, ‘that you think you don’t have to make an effort to contribute, then you’re quite right. You’re outnumbered. Everyone has to do their bit.’

There was a brief pause, and then Marianne, apparently examining the ends of a handful of her hair for split ends, said to Elinor, ‘And what bit are you going to do?’

For a moment Elinor thought she might lose all control. But then she caught Thomas’s eye and registered a quick glance of sympathy, if not understanding. She swallowed, and let her hand drop from her cardigan buttons. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I was going to ask Sir John about work of some kind anyway. So I can do it, can’t I, this morning.’

‘Oh, good,’ Marianne said. There was the faintest edge of sarcasm to her voice. She let her hair fall again and smiled at Thomas. ‘Let’s get it over with, then, shall we?’

‘It was my dream, of course,’ Sir John said, ‘to keep everything being manufactured in Devon. I started off that way, you know, got all the machines moved from Honiton, stayed up half the night mugging up labour laws, but I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t get the margins. Labour costs in the UK are just too high. So the machines – completely outdated now, of course – moulder in the old stables, and we outsource everything to North Portugal. Modern factory on an industrial estate. Not an oil painting as a place, but they do the business. Excellent quality—’ He broke off and looked at Margaret. He said abruptly, ‘You bored?’

Margaret nodded energetically. Sir John beamed at her. He seemed entirely unoffended. ‘You’re a baggage, Miss Margaret Dashwood.’

‘Perhaps,’ Belle said hastily, ‘these aren’t quite the clothes that someone of Margaret’s age—’

Sir John put an arm round Belle’s shoulders. He said, interrupting, ‘We’re coming to something that’s for every age. You’ll be bowled over by my design studio. Computerised drawing boards, technology to ascertain every average body shape and size …’

He began to guide her towards a doorway through which a high-ceilinged, brilliantly lit room was visible, talking all the time. Margaret trailed in his wake, sighing and scuffing her shoes, and Marianne followed, equally slowly and at an eloquently disdainful distance. Elinor watched them disappear into the studio ahead of her and felt, with mounting alarm, that it was going to be extremely hard, if not impossible, to persuade Sir John to give her any time or attention. He had already jovially dismissed their anxiety about getting Margaret to school by declaring that Thomas would drive her as far as the bus that would take her into Exeter, and, having done that, clearly felt he had more than done his duty by his new tenants for the moment. How could she, Elinor, buttonhole him further and explain to him in a way that neither dented their dignity nor diminished their plight that they were sorely in need of opportunities to make some money? How did you manage to make it look as if you weren’t, somehow, just begging?

There were steps behind her. Elinor turned to see Colonel Brandon approaching from the stairwell that led up to the studio level. The night before, he had been dressed in an unexceptionable tidy country uniform of dark trousers and formal sweater. This morning, he was in a daytime, olive-green version of the same and his shoes, Elinor could not help noticing, were properly polished.

He smiled at her. He said, ‘Had enough of thornproof waistcoats and poachers’ pockets?’

She smiled back, gratefully. ‘It’s very impressive. I’m – I’m just a bit preoccupied this morning. I’m sure it’s just moving – the change and everything.’

Bill Brandon put his hands in his trouser pockets. ‘Especially if you’re the practical one.’