FIC: "Relatives & Relativity" (DW/S&S, G, gen) 1/2
Yes, it's the anniversary of joy and merriment in the world: HAPPY VICTOR GARBER'S BIRTHDAY! I am in fine spirits, not only because of the existence of Victor Garber (though surely this is motivation enough), but also because I found some lovely fresh strawberries, and my yoga practice went well, and I survived my book launch with only moderate damage to my psyche. I wish to share my deep rapturous happiness with all of you, and I have but one means -- fanfic!
(No, not my help_haiti story, though I shall turn to the assignment of the questing kangeiko next.)
I've been working on this for more than a year, off and on (admittedly more off), but I always knew I'd finish it. Since writing "The Yankee's Loot" with Ten and Scarlett O'Hara, I've wanted to do more stories with various Doctors hooking up with other wonderful fictional characters as companions. And so, I bring to you a DW-Sense & Sensibility crossover, in which the sisters Dashwood meet Nine. Time settings in both canons should be clear in short order. Although I'm trying hard to be true to book canon, my take on S&S is strongly influenced by the Ang Lee film version, particularly as regards the characterizations of Mrs. Jennings and Margaret; Marianne's final speech to the Doctor in London is modified from a letter of Cassandra Austen's, which seemed appropriate given the context. Hope you like.
Thanks, as ever, to the bestest beta of all, rheanna27.
Sneak peek:
“Elinor - do you think it could be real - that he could - that he might be a magician?”
“His speech is rather rough, dearest. More likely he is a day-labourer from the North.”
**
"Relatives & Relativity"
by Yahtzee
1.
No one would deny there are few more forlorn sights than that of a young lady who has recently been jilted. Two such young ladies make a very unfortunate picture indeed.
It would, perhaps, not be entirely precise to say that Elinor Dashwood had been jilted. Edward Ferrars had given her no reason to hope for anything beyond his sincere friendship. However, Elinor had recently learned that Edward had been secretly engaged for many years to a Miss Lucy Steele, of Plymouth. Privately Elinor felt certain that Miss Steele’s aspirations to matrimony were more of a material nature than an amorous one, but this seemed of no consequence to Elinor’s own prospects. Edward, having given his word, would keep it, even if the cost were a loveless marriage and the loss of his inheritance. Elinor could in honour only wish him well and pretend that she did not believe he would have chosen differently, had he still been free to choose at the time they met.
Marianne Dashwood had quite decidedly been jilted. John Willoughby had wooed her both passionately and publicly, and the entire town had gossiped about their partiality for one another. Yet it was widely felt to be a good match - not least by Elinor herself, who did not doubt the sincerity of the pair’s affections, even when she wished for a more modest display of those feelings. But, alas, the expected engagement did not come to pass. Willoughby had proved himself a libertine, disgraced himself before his aunts and been cut off from his fortune - a turn of events to which he had responded by marrying a Miss Sophia Grey, who had fifty thousand pounds.
This shocking news had had the worst possible effect upon Marianne. Laid low by sorrow, she had developed an infectious fever that had very nearly ended her life.
Reminded of this illness on a morning some weeks later, Marianne made little of it. “I am quite well now, you see, and I do not need two shawls for a walk in the meadow when the weather is so bright.”
“Your cheeks are still pale.” Elinor resolutely wrapped the second shawl about her sister’s shoulders. Once, Marianne would have cast it to the floor rather than be told what to do, but now she submitted to Elinor’s desire.
Elinor would almost rather have prolonged the argument. In many ways, Marianne’s recovery had progressed well. Her appetite had returned, and she again took an interest in the affairs of her mother and sisters. She had even accepted the kind attentions of Colonel Brandon, who, though too wise and patient to press his suit so soon after her crisis, was eager to oblige Marianne in any whim that might speed her return to health.
Yet Marianne’s spirit remained but a shadow of what it had once been. The fire that had made Marianne so ungovernable - yet so happy - seemed to have been extinguished with the receipt of Willoughby’s final letter. This circumstance was, in its way, as frightening as her fever had been.
They did not speak as they wandered through the meadows near Barton Cottage. Marianne blinked against the sunlight, perhaps wondering whether Cum Magna was enjoying weather so fine, and if so, would Willoughby take his new wife for a ride in his carriage. The wind caught at Elinor’s hair, reminding her of a day when she and Edward had gone riding. Easily might they have spent their whole journey in such unhappy thoughts, had they not been most strangely interrupted.
Sudden brilliant light flared in the skies above them, and the ground beneath seemed to slip sideways. Both women tumbled upon the soft meadow grasses. Dimensions unknown to them bent and broke, the phenomena of which were profoundly unsettling. Marianne cried out in fright.
After but an instant, all was again as it had been.
“Do not be frightened, dearest.” Elinor attempted to conceal her own discomfiture, the better to comfort her sister. “It was but a tremor in the earth. We have read of such things.”
“I do not think so. Earth-quakes do not cause lightning, do they?” Despite her weakness, Marianne pushed herself to her feet first. “And as I fell - oh, Elinor, did you not sense it? That ripple around us?”
Elinor had sensed something most peculiar, but she could not account for its connection to this incident. “No doubt we are quite overcome by shock. We must pay it no mind.”
“I found myself thinking of - wonderful things, and terrible too.” Marianne held out her hand to steady Elinor as she, also, rose from the ground. “It was as though - as though, all at once, I could see everything I might ever have done. Every choice I might ever have made. A thousand lives, and each of them mine. Yet the thought of it fades so quickly!”
This statement was most startling to Elinor, who had experienced similar sensations. Of this, nothing remained but a dim image of Edward dancing with her at a London ball. Could a wrenching of the earth create such fancies? She resolved to read more upon the subject soon. “We must hurry home to Mamma. She will be beside herself.”
“Oh! Mamma and Margaret - what if they are hurt?”
“I do not think it was so severe an earth-quake as that. But we should -” Elinor’s voice trained off as she saw the small blue shed in the meadow.
The shed that had not been there before.
“What is that?” Marianne clutched Elinor’s sleeve. “Are we now seeing apparitions?”
Elinor considered it unlikely that they should both see the same apparition at once. “We may have failed to notice it before. I confess that I, at least, was most distracted by my thoughts.”
Marianne admitted the possibility of their distraction, but she could not imagine any reason to build a shed so far away from any person’s residence. Elinor suggested that it might be the work of shepherds, perhaps wishing for a place to shelter during sudden rainstorms. Marianne said no shepherds built such things, and Elinor said then they should certainly consider it as it would be quite practical, and they might have continued bickering in such turn for a long while had not the door of the shed opened.
Both sisters fell silent as a man stumbled forth. His curly hair was longer than any gentleman’s, but his clothing, while odd, did not seem like that of a workingman; his long frock coat was of bottle-green velvet. He staggered like a man unseeing, and blood stained his face and hands. No sooner had he gone five steps before he fell and tumbled out of sight down the little hill.
“He is injured. We must go to him,” Marianne said. Elinor opened her mouth to agree, but then they heard a rough masculine cry - and saw another flash of light, even more brilliant than the one before. They braced themselves against one another, expecting perhaps another of the strange earth-quakes, but the ground remained still.
“This is very peculiar,” Elinor said.
“How can you think of such when a man is hurt?” Marianne ran toward the place where the man had fallen. Elinor was not insensible to his condition, and glad to see the return her sister’s fiery disposition and quick compassion. But she felt unsettled as she hastened after Marianne, certain that this man’s sudden appearance had implications she could not yet fully comprehend.
This conviction was strengthened when they rounded the hill and looked down upon the unconscious man lying there. Still he wore the odd suit with the bottle-green coat; still blood marked his face and hands. But he was not the same man.
He was larger, it seemed. The suit was too short at the ankles and wrists, and his waistcoat pulled so tightly against his chest that the buttons strained the buttonholes. Instead of genteel features, he had a rougher countenance, large of nose and ear. Furthermore, instead of long, curly hair, he had been shorn so close to the scalp that he might as well have had no hair at all.
Marianne whispered, “I don’t understand.”
“We have been greatly surprised. Perceptions can be much altered in times of distress,” Elinor said. Although she was not entirely certain of the truth of her own words, she knew not how else to account for their present situation. “We must not be overcome. Help me, Marianne.”
They knelt by the stranger’s side, the better to ascertain whether he still lived and how serious were his injuries. As Elinor wondered whether she ought to risk the impropriety of taking his pulse, his eyes flew open. His expression was wholly wild.
“Gone,” he rasped, in a thick Lancashire accent. “All of them. Forever.”
“Sir, were you injured in the disturbance?” Elinor could think of no other term suitable to describe the odd events they had witnessed. “Shall we fetch a doctor?”
He laughed. It was a terrible sound, as deeply filled with sadness as Marianne’s weeping had ever been.
Marianne withdrew her kerchief from her pocket and dabbed at the bleeding cut upon his brow. “Do not strain yourself,” she said. “We shan’t leave you alone. We will look after you.”
“Alone,” he said, like a judge pronouncing sentence, but upon himself. Then he sank back into unconsciousness.
Elinor and Marianne exchanged looks of concern. It was Elinor who first suggested they should look within the shed. There might be water there to rinse away the blood and perhaps refresh him, as well as clews to his name and family. She could little have guessed how many answers lay behind the blue door.
As soon as they had opened the door, both sisters cried aloud. “Elinor!” Marianne’s eyes widened in the soft, golden light. “Have you ever beheld such a marvel as this?”
“I have not.” Elinor walked inside - not a shed, but a great space, larger by halves than Mrs. Jennings’ drawing room. The floors, walls and ceilings gleamed like polished brass, and an odd contraption whirred in the centre of it all.
Marianne stepped inside the shed, then out again, then repeated this process several times before she exclaimed, “It is larger within than without! That is impossible. And yet it is true. My eyes do not deceive me.”
“I do not see how it can be, and yet it so appears,” Elinor admitted. “Some strange illusion is at work.”
For the first time in many months, Marianne’s face lit up with true wonder. “Elinor - do you think it could be real - that he could - that he might be a magician?”
“His speech is rather rough, dearest. More likely he is a day-labourer from the North.”
“In a velvet coat? I think not. And how would a day-labourer create such as this?”
Elinor had no answer, but she kept her concentration upon their task. “First we must see to his well-being, and then you may pepper him with as many questions as necessary to ascertain that we have not come upon Merlin newly freed from Broceliande.”
“Do not teaze me,” Marianne said crossly, as she set to work searching. No letters or papers lay about, but a small brass door slid open - apparently of its own accord - revealing a jug of water. Triumphant in this further evidence of magic, Marianne hurried outside with the jug to give succour to the injured man. Elinor found a wardrobe full of all sorts of clothing, some of it highly peculiar. This interested her less than the fact that there were many soft cloths folded within, suitable for use as bandages.
As they knelt beside their patient, daubing blood from the smaller wounds on his hands, Marianne whispered, “Look at the cuts.”
“They are not so severe as we believed,” Elinor said, putting aside her first thought.
Marianne gave that first thought speech. “They are smaller than they were. It is as though he has been healing several days, rather than the span of a few minutes.”
There was nothing to say that would not stoke Marianne’s fantasies of magic, nor make Elinor doubt her own wits. Instead, Elinor began to plan. “Marianne, as soon as we have done what we can for him here, you must hurry home. I shall stay with the poor man; I think I will be safe enough. See if Mamma and Margaret are well, and whether a physician is to be had. Others may have been hurt or panicked by the tremor, and perhaps the doctor will be busy.”
“Not busy at all,” said their patient. “Nothing to do, now. Nothing ever again.”
“You are awake.” Marianne smiled encouragingly. “Do not fear. We will soon fetch help.”
“There’s no help for me.” He pushed himself into a seated position. The makeshift bandage they had tied upon his head obscured his vision slightly, and he tugged the white cloth to the side. For a moment he regarded both Elinor and Marianne with frank scrutiny. “Regency England, then. Good a place as any to face the end.”
“I do not think you will die,” Elinor said. Men were ever prone to exaggerate illness. “Just the same, we shall be glad to find a physician for you if you wish. I feel most strongly that you should be seen.”
“Fat lot of good he’d do me.” Then the stranger seemed to remember himself. “There’s just no point.”
“To getting a doctor?” Marianne asked.
“To anything.”
“May we know your name, sir?” Elinor did not like to leave the man this way. Perhaps he was merely uncouth and obstinate, but she had heard it said that some people behaved strangely after a blow to the head, and that when this was the case, a medical man should certainly be summoned. “Have you acquaintance in town that we might send to your aid?”
“I know no one in all the worlds,” he said, an odd turn of phrase Elinor assumed she had misheard. “They’re gone as if they never were. No - that’s not right. Not ‘as if.’ They truly never were.”
Elinor decided to be firm. “You are not well. Can you walk with us into the village? It is not far, and we could find help for you there.”
He gathered himself. Slowly, unsteadily, he rose to his feet, and they did likewise. “Forgive me. I’m not -” He looked down at the short cuffs of his coat and smiled darkly. “I’m not myself today.”
“All the more reason you should have a doctor,” insisted Marianne.
“I am a doctor,” he said. This seemed unlikely, given his accent, but Elinor’s small acquaintance with people from the North suggested that even learned men there spoke roughly. “I can see to myself. All I need at the moment is to be left alone. I have to - I have to think.”
His voice broke on the last, like a man announcing a great tragedy. Marianne, newly sensitive to the suffering of others, was the first to step slightly away to allow him space. Yet before he could leave, she blurted, “What is the magic inside that shed?”
“No such thing as magic,” said the doctor. “Just a trick of the light. That’s all there is to it.”
For the first time in her life, Elinor felt like arguing with someone who said there was no such thing as magic. She did not believe in incantations, spirits or any of Marianne’s gothic novels, but even if they had not seen “magic” at work, the shed represented more than a mere trick.
But this man’s stony face, and the despair behind his gaze, forestalled any possible argument.
They watched him step back into the shed and reluctantly began their journey back to Barton Cottage. As they walked, one or the other of the sisters would sometimes glance over their shoulder to ascertain whether the shed was still there - as though it might have the power to vanish into thin air. However, it never moved. Perhaps the odd doctor had come to stay.
2.
Upon their return to Barton Cottage, Elinor and Marianne saw at once Margaret happily climbing the ladder to her tree-house. This reassured them that nothing much was amiss.
“Probably the tremor’s only effect was to knock over some of Mamma’s porcelains,” Elinor said.
“Oh, not the little cat, I hope.” Marianne had always doted upon the china cat.
They went inside to find Mamma in a state of great turmoil, pacing the floor and wringing her kerchief in her hands. “Mamma, calm yourself,” Elinor said. “It was indeed very shocking, but we are quite well.”
“Then you have heard!” Mrs. Dashwood flung her arms around Marianne for a moment before she sank upon her chair. “How brave you both are. For myself I do not know how I shall bear it.”
Her words did not suit the cause. Marianne asked, “Were you much alarmed by the earth-quake?”
“Earth-quake?” Mrs. Dashwood seemed puzzled for but a moment. “You speak metaphorically, I see. Yes, this news might well be an earth-quake to us all. That was nicely put.”
How had their mother failed to perceive the trembling of the earth? Elinor, who had read their father’s book on the terrible disaster in Lisbon in the past century, felt certain that any earth-quake such as they had experienced would be felt over a space of many miles. Yet this question was not the most pressing one to be answered. “Tell us what you have heard, Mamma.”
“I know no more of it than you, only what Mrs. Jennings shared with me - a gossip she may be, but this counsel was kindly meant. She wished to warn us ere the Willoughbys arrive in town. We will try as best we can to retain a distance, but in country society, I fear we cannot prevent a meeting. My poor Marianne!”
Marianne paled, so much so that her face appeared much as it had during the most dangerous time of her illness. Without a word, she turned and ascended the stairs, the corner of one of her shawls dragging behind her unattended. Elinor knew she would need to comfort her sister, but that Marianne would first wish a few hours to compose herself. This was disastrous news indeed.
“Why should Willoughby return here?” She pushed aside the loop with Margaret’s abandoned, snarled attempt at embroidery, so that she might sit on the chair nearest her mother. “His aunts repudiated him for his behaviour toward Colonel Brandon’s ward, and his wife could not wish to arouse public scrutiny by bringing Willoughby so near to a woman with whom he was so lately linked.”
“Who knows what such a woman may or may not like? Perhaps she wishes to revel in her victory over Marianne’s hopes.” This was stern condemnation for a woman whose only fault, so far as they knew, lay in possessing a fortune where Marianne did not. Yet Elinor said nothing, knowing her mother’s feelings to be difficult to brook. “Mrs. Jennings has said that Willoughby’s parents wish for him to be reconciled with his aunts, and given his recent marriage, his aunts are willing to welcome them to their home and witness the supposed ‘reformation of his character.’ What fools they are to be deceived by such a man!”
They had each been deceived by him and thus, by their mother’s judgment, were equally fools. Elinor would have pointed this out, would it not have caused Mrs. Dashwood further remonstrance. In truth, it pained her to think upon the matter herself.
“A meeting is inevitable,” Elinor agreed. “But I believe Willoughby is conscious of his own wrongdoing, at least enough so that he will also attempt to avoid the acquaintance. If they do not stay long, we may not see them upwards of two or three times. We can bear that much.”
“I cannot, and you know that Marianne cannot either. She has been improving, but surely this will finish her!”
Elinor became stern. “Do not speak so. Do not encourage her tendency toward melancholy. We must support and cheer her as best we can. Now I will ask Betsy to make us all some tea.”
“Tea!” Mrs. Dashwood said, with contempt for such modest comfort.
“Yes, tea. Scoff as you like, but you will have a cup all the same.”
When Elinor entered the kitchen, Betsy was not there - probably in town doing the marketing, given the hour. She set about the work herself, much distracted by her thoughts.
Willoughby had dearly loved Marianne, even after spurning her for Miss Grey - no, Mrs. Willoughby, as she must now be called. Elinor knew this because of their conversation during Marianne’s illness. He had made wild protestations of his devotion and blamed his bad behaviour toward Marianne wholly upon his new wife’s influence, though Elinor knew better than to take such statements as gospel truth. Like as not the new Mrs. Willoughby was as good a sort as any other, if perhaps proud in the way many Londoners were.
No, it was not Willoughby’s wife that Elinor feared. It was Willoughby himself. Never able to contain his passions, proven capable of immortal conduct, chafing at the bonds of a loveless marriage - what might he be tempted to do? Elinor had no doubt of Marianne’s virtue, but she knew that any attempted renewal of their romance by Willoughby would have the worst possible effect upon her sister’s spirits.
For a moment she thought of Edward, also soon to be trapped in a marriage of no true affection. His behaviour would always be moderate and correct. Although he would take every care to avoid any future meeting, if one were unavoidable, he would be as kind as possible and prevent Lucy triumphing over her former rival. He would never again allude to the emotions that had once stirred between them.
Despite every element in her character that ought to have been against it, Elinor wished for one moment that he would.
The teakettle whistled, breaking her guilty reverie. She sighed in relief. Tea was indeed a sure remedy for many ills.
**
Not one week had passed before they saw the shining wheels of Willoughby’s curricle upon the path leading into the village. Though the sisters saw it at a distance, there was no mistaking it - no other in the parish owned a curricle, and Willoughby’s bearing and demeanour were unmistakable. Worse yet, the woman seated beside him, with a high jaunty plume upon her bonnet, seemed likely to be his wife.
“I shall be brave,” Marianne said. This was fully half the speech she had uttered since hearing of Willoughby’s return to Delaford. After such ominous silence, her determination came as a welcome surprise to Elinor. “I shall be very brave.”
“We are here with you, dearest.” Elinor looped her arm in Marianne’s.
Margaret also wished to help her sister, but she was too young to be sure of propriety, and weary after their long walk. “Will he not give us a ride in his carriage as he once did?”
“No, and do not ask him. Say nothing save good day.” Elinor remembered what good friends Willoughby and Margaret had once been. Yet when he had broken with Marianne, he had broken with them all.
They resumed walking, pretending not to see Willoughby as long as could be managed. His horses continued apace until Elinor thought he would simply ride past them without a word. She could not decide whether such a gesture would be unforgivable or a kindness. Yet at the last possible moment, he pulled upon the reins and came to a stop opposite them.
His wife was every bit the beauty that the gossips had said. She wore a white pelisse trimmed in brilliant vermillion, as well as the limerick gloves that every girl in London had been dreaming of. An embroidered Lyonese shawl was draped about her shoulders. Around her wrist lay a finely worked silver bracelet that gleamed in the sunlight. The cost of these clothes alone might have kept the Dashwood family in beef and sugar for many months. Elinor noted this with no disgust, only a lively awareness of the difficulties of their situation.
For his part, Willoughby’s handsome features were a perfect mask of ease and contentment he could not possibly have truly possessed. “The misses Dashwood. Good day to you all.”
“Good day,” piped Margaret, first of the three to find her voice. “I hope you enjoy the fine weather.”
“What a cunning child.” Mrs. Willoughby spoke this in tones that suggested she rarely saw children and preferred matters thus. “She must have taught herself manners.”
Conscious of her impoliteness, Elinor quickly said, “We welcome you to town, Mrs. Willoughby. I hope you find the countryside pleasing.”
Mrs. Willoughby’s smile focused upon Marianne, who stood silently by Elinor’s side. “Every place has its unique delights, I find.”
Such a brazen triumph at Marianne’s expense would have shamed any decent woman. Their mother’s assessment of her character had been proved accurate. Elinor turned her head away for a moment, to hide the embarrassment that would have so pleased the scornful Mrs. Willoughby. Before she could think of any possible reply, she glimpsed a familiar figure upon the road, coming toward them: the odd doctor they had met the day of the earth-quake.
Only the turmoil of Willoughby’s arrival in town could have turned her thoughts from this stranger, and the inexplicable events surrounding his arrival and injury. Still he wore the ill-fitting clothes they had seen that day, though he had added to this an extraordinarily long, hairy scarf of many colours. He caught sight of her only a moment after she had glimpsed him, and he responded by waving cheerily.
Any interruption from the present awkwardness was most welcome. “Good sir!” Elinor called. “We are pleased to see you well.”
“Just taking my morning constitutional. Glad to find the two of you about.” His grin proved to be as exaggerated as the rest of his features. Though Elinor could sense some shadows of the melancholy that had affected him before, he appeared determined to make a better show of himself on the present occasion.
“Whom have we here?” Willoughby asked, too eagerly. His composure, untroubled only moments prior, had begun to show the strain of their meeting. Marianne, for her part, looked as though she might faint at any second. They, too, strongly wished for a diversion. “You must be new to the neighbourhood, sir, as I do not believe I have the honour of your acquaintance. John Willoughby, at your service, and this is my wife, Sophia.”
Marianne flinched.
“New to the neighbourhood - you might say that, yes.” The stranger held out a hand, which was most forward but not audacious. “Name’s John Smith, but you’d as well call me the Doctor. Everyone does eventually.”
“The county will be glad of a new physician,” Willoughby said. “Mr. Davies is excellent, but already he has more patients than he has hours in the day.”
“He’ll have to look elsewhere for help with his work load,” the Doctor said. “I consider myself retired.”
“What a pity,” Elinor said, as it seemed the thing to say, though she could not envision the county matrons entrusting their health to an eccentric.
“Retired to live a life of leisure, while still in your prime.” Willoughby smiled. “I like a man who knows the value of pleasure.”
The Doctor’s gaze raked over the lines of the curricle, his smile becoming somehow a harder thing. “No doubt you do.”
Elinor realized that the Doctor had taken Willoughby’s full measure, and accurately so, most swiftly. Would that he had been present to counsel them months earlier.
Sophia Willoughby interjected, “How fortunate you walked by just now. We were just about to invite the misses Dashwood to a ball.” Once more she smiled, too brightly, at Marianne. “In honour of our new marriage. Of course we shall need someone there to dance with the unwed ladies. Will you come as well, Mr. Smith?”
“Doctor, please. And I make no promises. Though isn’t it kind of you to ask?”
The Doctor’s smile widened into an almost indecently broad grin. For a moment, Elinor believed that, although he was a good judge of the character of reckless young men, his wits entirely deserted him when presented with a pretty female. This would scarcely have been surprising, or unique. Then she glimpsed the shadow beneath his smile, the darkness within his gaze. It reminded her of Colonel Brandon, in a way - the sense of ever-constant grief that underlay every movement, though it was harder to spot behind this man’s supposedly merry countenance. He knew well that Mrs. Willoughby was not kind at all - and there was more to his demeanour, besides.
Alone, he had said in the meadow. Although Elinor suspected most of his speech at that time to have been mere ranting, she felt certain that word was this man’s truth.
Mrs. Willoughby told them the ball would be Friday next, and she particularly entreated the Doctor to attend. It was evident by her reactions that she found the Doctor most uncouth and thought him therefore the ideal escort for her former rival; this was the only imaginable motivation for her avid curiosity regarding him. Elinor accepted with the best grace she could muster, glancing frequently at Marianne to see how she fared. Marianne did not weep nor blush; instead she kept her eyes turned toward the Doctor, intent.
“Come, my dear,” Willoughby said, obviously impatient to extricate himself from Marianne’s company. “We must to the Grangers’, for you see it is almost noon.”
The Doctor raised his index finger. “Ah, one thing before you go - about that peacock feather in your hat -“
“They are quite the rage in London, though I can expect you see them but rarely in the country.” Mrs. Willoughby tossed her head, so that the feather would dance prettily.
“So much the rage that there’s quite a business in knockoffs.” The Doctor clasped his hands behind his back and rocked back and forth on his heels. “You’re not wearing peacock. You’re wearing emu. Dyed, I imagine. Just wanted to tell you that you’d best not get it wet.”
Mrs. Willoughby, aghast, put one hand to her bonnet, and her cheeks betrayed her embarrassment. “Sir - Fulham’s is the finest milliner on the West End. Surely you are mistaken.”
“I know my peacocks, and I know my emus - some personally, though we can’t really get into that right now - and that’s emu. And no need to be bashful! It’s easy to make the mistake when you’re not familiar with what’s genuine.” His smile changed slightly as he said, “Now, that bracelet you’ve got on - that’s genuine indeed.”
“Your assertions have been noted,” she said, taking her husband’s arm. “Mr. Willoughby, we must adieu.”
Willoughby raised his hat in farewell. His eyes briefly met Marianne’s, and Elinor felt the shock of their connexion so powerfully she wondered that either of them could bear it. Then he snapped the reins and freed them all from the situation.
As the curricle disappeared down the road, Elinor murmured, “I realize the motive for your interference was honourable, but there was no need to humiliate Mrs. Willoughby about her fashions.”
“Need? No. Desire? Oh, yes indeed.” The Doctor kept looking after the carriage, apparently deep in thought. “Someone has to stand up for the honour of the emu. Noble bird, really, though in appearance it is a bit on the goofy side.”
“Why didn’t you like Mrs. Willoughby?” Margaret piped up. “I mean, I know why we don’t like her, but I don’t know why you feel the same.”
Elinor shot her younger sister a reproving look, but like so many other such looks over the years, it went unheeded.
“It’s not my problem,” the Doctor muttered, as if to himself. Then he focused his attention on Margaret, and his smile proved much more kindly when it was truly felt. “The story’s clear enough. Mr. Willoughby threw over your lovely sister here for another woman. That makes him a cad. His wife is foolish enough to think his behaviour reflects well on her. That makes her all sorts of things it’s not nice to call a lady.”
“He married her because she’s rich, and he’d lost his own money,” Margaret confided.
“Margaret.” Elinor glanced at Marianne, who remained calm, and continued to look at the Doctor. “You must not speak of such things.”
“I didn’t tell him about Willoughby! He already knew! I don’t see why we mightn’t explain if he already knows the really bad parts.”
It was fortunate that the Doctor chose this moment to change the subject of their discourse. “Like I said earlier, I truly am glad to see you.” His voice was less merry than before, and for once he seemed to be talking entirely sensibly. “To thank you for your help when I was hurt. The two of you went to a great deal of trouble to assist a stranger, and one who was being rather rude to you in the bargain. People that good are too rare, on this world or any other.”
There was that odd turn of phrase again, but none of the Dashwood sisters dwelled long upon it.
The Doctor clapped his hands together, cheerful again, except for his eyes. “Now, let’s see, how would you put it these days - ah, yes. Might I have the pleasure of knowing to whom I am indebted?”
“I am Miss Dashwood, of Barton Cottage,” said Elinor. “You remember my sister, Miss Marianne, and this is our youngest sister, Margaret.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” said Margaret, clearly happy to again be on sure social footing.
Marianne finally spoke, “You did not reveal our lack of any prior acquaintance while Willoughby and - while they were still here. You were quite careful to avoid that.”
“Thought it might look better if you had a friend on your side, though I admit I probably cut a strange figure, as friends go,” the Doctor said. His blithe admission - and Marianne’s insight - startled Elinor.
“Your cuts have healed very nicely,” Marianne continued. “In fact, I cannot see any evidence of your injury.”
The Doctor’s smile dimmed, and yet in his countenance Elinor thought she saw a more genuine respect. “Comes of having such fine nurses on hand, I suppose.”
This was no answer, and now that Elinor attended to Marianne’s words, she was startled by the lack of any marks upon the Doctor whatsoever. He had been sorely injured when they came upon him in the field; now, he was whole, when any other would still have been swathed in bandages.
Margaret asked, “Will you not come to tea? You could meet our mother, and then we can all be friends. We can’t be friends with men Mamma hasn’t met.” She added plaintively, “I don’t know why.”
“Yes,” Marianne said, surprising Elinor. “Please do come to tea. I should like to continue our acquaintance, and if you are to remain here, you will wish to join our local society.” She spoke with sincerity, and yet there was that in her words that suggested a test.
“I’ll be around for longer than you can imagine.” The Doctor’s gaze became set and hard. “For many years I was a traveller but - my work is done. I’m finished with all of it. No more travelling.”
“I’m glad you’re having tea with us,” Margaret confided. “We have biscuits, too.”
“Can’t have proper tea without the biscuits.” How odd it was that the Doctor could say such a thing, and smile, and somehow seem sadder than he ever had before.
**
The Doctor was not to be their only guest at tea-time, for when they returned to Barton Cottage, they discovered Mrs. Jennings and Sir John Middleton already in the drawing room. Elinor made what introductions she could, amid Sir John’s hearty invitations to go shooting and Mrs. Jennings’ efforts to determine whether the Doctor was a married man. Upon receiving a rather decided negative answer, Mrs. Jennings’ interest was immediate. Elinor hurried to the kitchen to help Betsy, lest she become the subject of the latest attempt at matchmaking.
Marianne hastened behind her. “Is not this curious?” she whispered. “Our Doctor is a most mysterious figure.”
“Are you proclaiming him a wizard once more?” Elinor put together a new tray as best she could, but Betsy had not made enough biscuits - little wonder, as they had been expecting no guests but had three.
“Follow my reasoning, Elinor - and yes, I too have reason, if I am not always as quick to employ it. The Doctor said he has travelled much, and we may infer that he is truthful from his familiarity with exotic birds. He is a medical man, and therefore not a gentleman, yet he has enough fortune to pursue no profession if he chooses. This fortune he has acquired at no greater an age than that of Colonel Brandon.”
Elinor smiled slightly at this from her sister, who had until recently considered Colonel Brandon to be superannuated beyond the reach of human feeling. Truly, the Colonel’s many kindnesses during her sister’s convalescence were beginning to bear fruit.
“And something very terrible has saddened him,” Marianne said. “For I believe that his past has been much blighted.”
Dearly though Elinor wished to curtail her sister’s tendency toward speculation, she had to admit that all these statements seemed likely. “We must not pry. I think he would little care for that.”
“You are right, I am sure. Perhaps - perhaps he was a physician in the navy, and he married a woman of higher birth. His honour would not permit him to abandon his profession and live upon her fortune. But then she died - oh, I hope not in childbirth, how terrible - she died and left him her wealth. So now he is free as she wished, but can take no pleasure in his change in circumstance.” This poured from Marianne quite breathlessly. “Poor man. How he must suffer!”
“If indeed your story bore any resemblance to fact, it would be tragic indeed. Yet we cannot know that, and we will not be so unkind as to test your wild theories.”
“Those are not wild theories. Those are very sensible theories. We shall require wild theories to explain his house being bigger on the inside, or how he cannot be scarred. There, I do not know what to believe.”
More fantasies, of the sort that would do Marianne no good. Elinor thrust the tea-tray at her. “Do not dwell upon it until we have the leisure to consider. We will feel more settled once tea is served.”
“You think tea solves everything,” Marianne said.
From the parlour they heard the pianoforte, though the song issuing from it was unlike any other with which they were familiar. To Elinor the sound was more like clamour than music, despite its oddly compelling quality. The sisters exchanged a look before hurrying back to the parlour.
The Doctor sat at the pianoforte’s keyboard, bashing out the tune with undisguised glee. Sir John clapped in time, a broad grin upon his face, as Mrs. Jennings and Margaret danced as best they could with only one another for partners. Even Mrs. Dashwood nodded her head and smiled broadly, and when the Doctor finished with a flourish, all applauded.
“What a jaunty tune!” exclaimed Mrs. Jennings. “I swear, I never heard its like. So thrilling! Quite the thing for dancing. Tell us, what is it called?”
“Blue Suede Shoes.” The Doctor closed the pianoforte lid with apparent regret. “Hasn’t quite caught on in London yet, but give it time.”
“Capital!” Sir John thumped the Doctor’s shoulder. “Yes, we’ll want to hear more of your daring new songs. We may demand a recital of you one day. “
Mrs. Jennings interjected, “You see, at our house, you must sing for your supper!”
“An entirely reasonable requirement.” The Doctor did not seem intimidated by Mrs. Jennings in the slightest, which said much for his courage. “Though, truth be told, Mrs. J., it’s best all around if I don’t sing. Let me tickle the ivories and someone else can provide the pipes.”
These peculiar twists of phrase silenced Mrs. Jennings for but a moment. “Such jokes you make. There’s something of the schoolboy in you yet, good Doctor.”
“Hah.” The Doctor accepted his tea and nodded when Elinor offered him a lump of sugar. His too-short coat sleeves showed a fair measure of his wrists, and once again she wondered how he could simultaneously be genteel and uncouth. “I’ve not been a schoolboy in more years than you could count, Mrs. J.”
“Bless you, and me old enough to be your mother.” Mrs. Jennings’ expression took on a cast that was not unfamiliar to Elinor, who winced in anticipation. “Tell me, Doctor, have you never considered having a few schoolboys of your own? Surely there is some woman in the parish who would make you a fine wife. Why, she might be closer than you think.”
She smiled benevolently at Elinor, who felt at that moment it would be better to take to a nunnery than to remain an unmarried woman within reach of Mrs. Jennings.
“I shall live the rest of my days alone,” the Doctor said. He spoke simply, yet there was that in his voice as would ensure the end of any jests about his unwed state, even from the indefatigable Mrs. Jennings. Elinor admired this and hoped someday to emulate it.
“You shall not be alone, not so long as my dear Mamma and I have a place at our table,” declared Sir John. “And that is every day of the week. Rest assured, Doctor, you have friends in Delaford.”
“It seems that I do.” The Doctor looked as though he did not know how to take this news, as well he might not, when presented with Mrs. Jennings and Sir John.
Margaret, still bouncing on her heels from the excitement of the dancing, asked, “Will you play that song at the Willoughbys’ ball? Everyone will like it, I know.”
“The Willoughbys’ ball?” Mrs. Dashwood rose to her feet. “What is this?”
Elinor would have spared Marianne the pain of speaking of it, but Marianne faced the matter bravely, saying, “We met them upon the road, Mamma. They have asked us to a ball at his aunts’ home. No doubt Barton Park will receive an invitation as well. And I fear there is nothing for it but that we must attend.”
“Never shall I set foot in that house!” Mrs. Dashwood swept grandly from the room, though in Barton Cottage she had nowhere to sweep toward, save the kitchen, which was not at all grand. Elinor quickly handed her mother’s tea to Margaret, who dutifully followed after.
Sir John shook his head. “It’s a bad bit of business. Nobody would blame you if you were to absent yourself, my dear.” He petted Marianne’s hand.
“I see that you are acquainted with the sad state of affairs, Doctor.” Mrs. Jennings’ broad face could, at times, reflect genuine sympathy. “Mind you, I am half inclined to avoid their company myself. For I met them in town yesterday afternoon, and so shocking was their conduct!”
This struck Elinor as odd. Though Mrs. Willoughby had been most unkind, her behaviour had not been remarkable save in its venom. Mrs. Jennings was unlikely to notice any deviation from proper decorum unless it was extreme. “What do you mean, Mrs. Jennings?”
“Well. Quite the lady of fashion, so she would have herself. How she kept flashing that bracelet of hers in my eyes! Blinding.” Mrs. Jennings drank deeply of her tea. “Showing off, I expect. And such nerve. ‘I command thee’ this, ‘I command thee’ that. She’ll soon learn I’m not so easily commanded! Willoughby sat there through it all without one word to her. He is a good-for-nothing, Marianne, and you are well rid of him.”
“Yes,” Marianne said. “I believe I am.” Her voice had no feeling, her words no animation to express true emotion.
Elinor frowned. “Doctor?”
The Doctor had put his head in his hands and his elbows on the lid of the pianoforte. Beneath his breath, he was whispering, barely loud enough for Elinor to hear, “It’s not my problem. It’s not my problem.”
But she thought he did not believe his words any more than Marianne.
Sir John said, “Come now, man, out with it. Shall we see you at this ball for the odious Willoughbys, or shall we not?”
Slowly the Doctor raised his head. He said nothing as he took a deep breath and readjusted the woolly scarf around his neck. His expression was determined in a way Elinor had not seen before, and she thought in that moment that she had, at last, beheld the true man.
“Yes,” the Doctor said grimly. “I feel like a spot of dancing.”
**
concluded in next post
Part Two can be found here!
(No, not my help_haiti story, though I shall turn to the assignment of the questing kangeiko next.)
I've been working on this for more than a year, off and on (admittedly more off), but I always knew I'd finish it. Since writing "The Yankee's Loot" with Ten and Scarlett O'Hara, I've wanted to do more stories with various Doctors hooking up with other wonderful fictional characters as companions. And so, I bring to you a DW-Sense & Sensibility crossover, in which the sisters Dashwood meet Nine. Time settings in both canons should be clear in short order. Although I'm trying hard to be true to book canon, my take on S&S is strongly influenced by the Ang Lee film version, particularly as regards the characterizations of Mrs. Jennings and Margaret; Marianne's final speech to the Doctor in London is modified from a letter of Cassandra Austen's, which seemed appropriate given the context. Hope you like.
Thanks, as ever, to the bestest beta of all, rheanna27.
Sneak peek:
“Elinor - do you think it could be real - that he could - that he might be a magician?”
“His speech is rather rough, dearest. More likely he is a day-labourer from the North.”
**
"Relatives & Relativity"
by Yahtzee
1.
No one would deny there are few more forlorn sights than that of a young lady who has recently been jilted. Two such young ladies make a very unfortunate picture indeed.
It would, perhaps, not be entirely precise to say that Elinor Dashwood had been jilted. Edward Ferrars had given her no reason to hope for anything beyond his sincere friendship. However, Elinor had recently learned that Edward had been secretly engaged for many years to a Miss Lucy Steele, of Plymouth. Privately Elinor felt certain that Miss Steele’s aspirations to matrimony were more of a material nature than an amorous one, but this seemed of no consequence to Elinor’s own prospects. Edward, having given his word, would keep it, even if the cost were a loveless marriage and the loss of his inheritance. Elinor could in honour only wish him well and pretend that she did not believe he would have chosen differently, had he still been free to choose at the time they met.
Marianne Dashwood had quite decidedly been jilted. John Willoughby had wooed her both passionately and publicly, and the entire town had gossiped about their partiality for one another. Yet it was widely felt to be a good match - not least by Elinor herself, who did not doubt the sincerity of the pair’s affections, even when she wished for a more modest display of those feelings. But, alas, the expected engagement did not come to pass. Willoughby had proved himself a libertine, disgraced himself before his aunts and been cut off from his fortune - a turn of events to which he had responded by marrying a Miss Sophia Grey, who had fifty thousand pounds.
This shocking news had had the worst possible effect upon Marianne. Laid low by sorrow, she had developed an infectious fever that had very nearly ended her life.
Reminded of this illness on a morning some weeks later, Marianne made little of it. “I am quite well now, you see, and I do not need two shawls for a walk in the meadow when the weather is so bright.”
“Your cheeks are still pale.” Elinor resolutely wrapped the second shawl about her sister’s shoulders. Once, Marianne would have cast it to the floor rather than be told what to do, but now she submitted to Elinor’s desire.
Elinor would almost rather have prolonged the argument. In many ways, Marianne’s recovery had progressed well. Her appetite had returned, and she again took an interest in the affairs of her mother and sisters. She had even accepted the kind attentions of Colonel Brandon, who, though too wise and patient to press his suit so soon after her crisis, was eager to oblige Marianne in any whim that might speed her return to health.
Yet Marianne’s spirit remained but a shadow of what it had once been. The fire that had made Marianne so ungovernable - yet so happy - seemed to have been extinguished with the receipt of Willoughby’s final letter. This circumstance was, in its way, as frightening as her fever had been.
They did not speak as they wandered through the meadows near Barton Cottage. Marianne blinked against the sunlight, perhaps wondering whether Cum Magna was enjoying weather so fine, and if so, would Willoughby take his new wife for a ride in his carriage. The wind caught at Elinor’s hair, reminding her of a day when she and Edward had gone riding. Easily might they have spent their whole journey in such unhappy thoughts, had they not been most strangely interrupted.
Sudden brilliant light flared in the skies above them, and the ground beneath seemed to slip sideways. Both women tumbled upon the soft meadow grasses. Dimensions unknown to them bent and broke, the phenomena of which were profoundly unsettling. Marianne cried out in fright.
After but an instant, all was again as it had been.
“Do not be frightened, dearest.” Elinor attempted to conceal her own discomfiture, the better to comfort her sister. “It was but a tremor in the earth. We have read of such things.”
“I do not think so. Earth-quakes do not cause lightning, do they?” Despite her weakness, Marianne pushed herself to her feet first. “And as I fell - oh, Elinor, did you not sense it? That ripple around us?”
Elinor had sensed something most peculiar, but she could not account for its connection to this incident. “No doubt we are quite overcome by shock. We must pay it no mind.”
“I found myself thinking of - wonderful things, and terrible too.” Marianne held out her hand to steady Elinor as she, also, rose from the ground. “It was as though - as though, all at once, I could see everything I might ever have done. Every choice I might ever have made. A thousand lives, and each of them mine. Yet the thought of it fades so quickly!”
This statement was most startling to Elinor, who had experienced similar sensations. Of this, nothing remained but a dim image of Edward dancing with her at a London ball. Could a wrenching of the earth create such fancies? She resolved to read more upon the subject soon. “We must hurry home to Mamma. She will be beside herself.”
“Oh! Mamma and Margaret - what if they are hurt?”
“I do not think it was so severe an earth-quake as that. But we should -” Elinor’s voice trained off as she saw the small blue shed in the meadow.
The shed that had not been there before.
“What is that?” Marianne clutched Elinor’s sleeve. “Are we now seeing apparitions?”
Elinor considered it unlikely that they should both see the same apparition at once. “We may have failed to notice it before. I confess that I, at least, was most distracted by my thoughts.”
Marianne admitted the possibility of their distraction, but she could not imagine any reason to build a shed so far away from any person’s residence. Elinor suggested that it might be the work of shepherds, perhaps wishing for a place to shelter during sudden rainstorms. Marianne said no shepherds built such things, and Elinor said then they should certainly consider it as it would be quite practical, and they might have continued bickering in such turn for a long while had not the door of the shed opened.
Both sisters fell silent as a man stumbled forth. His curly hair was longer than any gentleman’s, but his clothing, while odd, did not seem like that of a workingman; his long frock coat was of bottle-green velvet. He staggered like a man unseeing, and blood stained his face and hands. No sooner had he gone five steps before he fell and tumbled out of sight down the little hill.
“He is injured. We must go to him,” Marianne said. Elinor opened her mouth to agree, but then they heard a rough masculine cry - and saw another flash of light, even more brilliant than the one before. They braced themselves against one another, expecting perhaps another of the strange earth-quakes, but the ground remained still.
“This is very peculiar,” Elinor said.
“How can you think of such when a man is hurt?” Marianne ran toward the place where the man had fallen. Elinor was not insensible to his condition, and glad to see the return her sister’s fiery disposition and quick compassion. But she felt unsettled as she hastened after Marianne, certain that this man’s sudden appearance had implications she could not yet fully comprehend.
This conviction was strengthened when they rounded the hill and looked down upon the unconscious man lying there. Still he wore the odd suit with the bottle-green coat; still blood marked his face and hands. But he was not the same man.
He was larger, it seemed. The suit was too short at the ankles and wrists, and his waistcoat pulled so tightly against his chest that the buttons strained the buttonholes. Instead of genteel features, he had a rougher countenance, large of nose and ear. Furthermore, instead of long, curly hair, he had been shorn so close to the scalp that he might as well have had no hair at all.
Marianne whispered, “I don’t understand.”
“We have been greatly surprised. Perceptions can be much altered in times of distress,” Elinor said. Although she was not entirely certain of the truth of her own words, she knew not how else to account for their present situation. “We must not be overcome. Help me, Marianne.”
They knelt by the stranger’s side, the better to ascertain whether he still lived and how serious were his injuries. As Elinor wondered whether she ought to risk the impropriety of taking his pulse, his eyes flew open. His expression was wholly wild.
“Gone,” he rasped, in a thick Lancashire accent. “All of them. Forever.”
“Sir, were you injured in the disturbance?” Elinor could think of no other term suitable to describe the odd events they had witnessed. “Shall we fetch a doctor?”
He laughed. It was a terrible sound, as deeply filled with sadness as Marianne’s weeping had ever been.
Marianne withdrew her kerchief from her pocket and dabbed at the bleeding cut upon his brow. “Do not strain yourself,” she said. “We shan’t leave you alone. We will look after you.”
“Alone,” he said, like a judge pronouncing sentence, but upon himself. Then he sank back into unconsciousness.
Elinor and Marianne exchanged looks of concern. It was Elinor who first suggested they should look within the shed. There might be water there to rinse away the blood and perhaps refresh him, as well as clews to his name and family. She could little have guessed how many answers lay behind the blue door.
As soon as they had opened the door, both sisters cried aloud. “Elinor!” Marianne’s eyes widened in the soft, golden light. “Have you ever beheld such a marvel as this?”
“I have not.” Elinor walked inside - not a shed, but a great space, larger by halves than Mrs. Jennings’ drawing room. The floors, walls and ceilings gleamed like polished brass, and an odd contraption whirred in the centre of it all.
Marianne stepped inside the shed, then out again, then repeated this process several times before she exclaimed, “It is larger within than without! That is impossible. And yet it is true. My eyes do not deceive me.”
“I do not see how it can be, and yet it so appears,” Elinor admitted. “Some strange illusion is at work.”
For the first time in many months, Marianne’s face lit up with true wonder. “Elinor - do you think it could be real - that he could - that he might be a magician?”
“His speech is rather rough, dearest. More likely he is a day-labourer from the North.”
“In a velvet coat? I think not. And how would a day-labourer create such as this?”
Elinor had no answer, but she kept her concentration upon their task. “First we must see to his well-being, and then you may pepper him with as many questions as necessary to ascertain that we have not come upon Merlin newly freed from Broceliande.”
“Do not teaze me,” Marianne said crossly, as she set to work searching. No letters or papers lay about, but a small brass door slid open - apparently of its own accord - revealing a jug of water. Triumphant in this further evidence of magic, Marianne hurried outside with the jug to give succour to the injured man. Elinor found a wardrobe full of all sorts of clothing, some of it highly peculiar. This interested her less than the fact that there were many soft cloths folded within, suitable for use as bandages.
As they knelt beside their patient, daubing blood from the smaller wounds on his hands, Marianne whispered, “Look at the cuts.”
“They are not so severe as we believed,” Elinor said, putting aside her first thought.
Marianne gave that first thought speech. “They are smaller than they were. It is as though he has been healing several days, rather than the span of a few minutes.”
There was nothing to say that would not stoke Marianne’s fantasies of magic, nor make Elinor doubt her own wits. Instead, Elinor began to plan. “Marianne, as soon as we have done what we can for him here, you must hurry home. I shall stay with the poor man; I think I will be safe enough. See if Mamma and Margaret are well, and whether a physician is to be had. Others may have been hurt or panicked by the tremor, and perhaps the doctor will be busy.”
“Not busy at all,” said their patient. “Nothing to do, now. Nothing ever again.”
“You are awake.” Marianne smiled encouragingly. “Do not fear. We will soon fetch help.”
“There’s no help for me.” He pushed himself into a seated position. The makeshift bandage they had tied upon his head obscured his vision slightly, and he tugged the white cloth to the side. For a moment he regarded both Elinor and Marianne with frank scrutiny. “Regency England, then. Good a place as any to face the end.”
“I do not think you will die,” Elinor said. Men were ever prone to exaggerate illness. “Just the same, we shall be glad to find a physician for you if you wish. I feel most strongly that you should be seen.”
“Fat lot of good he’d do me.” Then the stranger seemed to remember himself. “There’s just no point.”
“To getting a doctor?” Marianne asked.
“To anything.”
“May we know your name, sir?” Elinor did not like to leave the man this way. Perhaps he was merely uncouth and obstinate, but she had heard it said that some people behaved strangely after a blow to the head, and that when this was the case, a medical man should certainly be summoned. “Have you acquaintance in town that we might send to your aid?”
“I know no one in all the worlds,” he said, an odd turn of phrase Elinor assumed she had misheard. “They’re gone as if they never were. No - that’s not right. Not ‘as if.’ They truly never were.”
Elinor decided to be firm. “You are not well. Can you walk with us into the village? It is not far, and we could find help for you there.”
He gathered himself. Slowly, unsteadily, he rose to his feet, and they did likewise. “Forgive me. I’m not -” He looked down at the short cuffs of his coat and smiled darkly. “I’m not myself today.”
“All the more reason you should have a doctor,” insisted Marianne.
“I am a doctor,” he said. This seemed unlikely, given his accent, but Elinor’s small acquaintance with people from the North suggested that even learned men there spoke roughly. “I can see to myself. All I need at the moment is to be left alone. I have to - I have to think.”
His voice broke on the last, like a man announcing a great tragedy. Marianne, newly sensitive to the suffering of others, was the first to step slightly away to allow him space. Yet before he could leave, she blurted, “What is the magic inside that shed?”
“No such thing as magic,” said the doctor. “Just a trick of the light. That’s all there is to it.”
For the first time in her life, Elinor felt like arguing with someone who said there was no such thing as magic. She did not believe in incantations, spirits or any of Marianne’s gothic novels, but even if they had not seen “magic” at work, the shed represented more than a mere trick.
But this man’s stony face, and the despair behind his gaze, forestalled any possible argument.
They watched him step back into the shed and reluctantly began their journey back to Barton Cottage. As they walked, one or the other of the sisters would sometimes glance over their shoulder to ascertain whether the shed was still there - as though it might have the power to vanish into thin air. However, it never moved. Perhaps the odd doctor had come to stay.
2.
Upon their return to Barton Cottage, Elinor and Marianne saw at once Margaret happily climbing the ladder to her tree-house. This reassured them that nothing much was amiss.
“Probably the tremor’s only effect was to knock over some of Mamma’s porcelains,” Elinor said.
“Oh, not the little cat, I hope.” Marianne had always doted upon the china cat.
They went inside to find Mamma in a state of great turmoil, pacing the floor and wringing her kerchief in her hands. “Mamma, calm yourself,” Elinor said. “It was indeed very shocking, but we are quite well.”
“Then you have heard!” Mrs. Dashwood flung her arms around Marianne for a moment before she sank upon her chair. “How brave you both are. For myself I do not know how I shall bear it.”
Her words did not suit the cause. Marianne asked, “Were you much alarmed by the earth-quake?”
“Earth-quake?” Mrs. Dashwood seemed puzzled for but a moment. “You speak metaphorically, I see. Yes, this news might well be an earth-quake to us all. That was nicely put.”
How had their mother failed to perceive the trembling of the earth? Elinor, who had read their father’s book on the terrible disaster in Lisbon in the past century, felt certain that any earth-quake such as they had experienced would be felt over a space of many miles. Yet this question was not the most pressing one to be answered. “Tell us what you have heard, Mamma.”
“I know no more of it than you, only what Mrs. Jennings shared with me - a gossip she may be, but this counsel was kindly meant. She wished to warn us ere the Willoughbys arrive in town. We will try as best we can to retain a distance, but in country society, I fear we cannot prevent a meeting. My poor Marianne!”
Marianne paled, so much so that her face appeared much as it had during the most dangerous time of her illness. Without a word, she turned and ascended the stairs, the corner of one of her shawls dragging behind her unattended. Elinor knew she would need to comfort her sister, but that Marianne would first wish a few hours to compose herself. This was disastrous news indeed.
“Why should Willoughby return here?” She pushed aside the loop with Margaret’s abandoned, snarled attempt at embroidery, so that she might sit on the chair nearest her mother. “His aunts repudiated him for his behaviour toward Colonel Brandon’s ward, and his wife could not wish to arouse public scrutiny by bringing Willoughby so near to a woman with whom he was so lately linked.”
“Who knows what such a woman may or may not like? Perhaps she wishes to revel in her victory over Marianne’s hopes.” This was stern condemnation for a woman whose only fault, so far as they knew, lay in possessing a fortune where Marianne did not. Yet Elinor said nothing, knowing her mother’s feelings to be difficult to brook. “Mrs. Jennings has said that Willoughby’s parents wish for him to be reconciled with his aunts, and given his recent marriage, his aunts are willing to welcome them to their home and witness the supposed ‘reformation of his character.’ What fools they are to be deceived by such a man!”
They had each been deceived by him and thus, by their mother’s judgment, were equally fools. Elinor would have pointed this out, would it not have caused Mrs. Dashwood further remonstrance. In truth, it pained her to think upon the matter herself.
“A meeting is inevitable,” Elinor agreed. “But I believe Willoughby is conscious of his own wrongdoing, at least enough so that he will also attempt to avoid the acquaintance. If they do not stay long, we may not see them upwards of two or three times. We can bear that much.”
“I cannot, and you know that Marianne cannot either. She has been improving, but surely this will finish her!”
Elinor became stern. “Do not speak so. Do not encourage her tendency toward melancholy. We must support and cheer her as best we can. Now I will ask Betsy to make us all some tea.”
“Tea!” Mrs. Dashwood said, with contempt for such modest comfort.
“Yes, tea. Scoff as you like, but you will have a cup all the same.”
When Elinor entered the kitchen, Betsy was not there - probably in town doing the marketing, given the hour. She set about the work herself, much distracted by her thoughts.
Willoughby had dearly loved Marianne, even after spurning her for Miss Grey - no, Mrs. Willoughby, as she must now be called. Elinor knew this because of their conversation during Marianne’s illness. He had made wild protestations of his devotion and blamed his bad behaviour toward Marianne wholly upon his new wife’s influence, though Elinor knew better than to take such statements as gospel truth. Like as not the new Mrs. Willoughby was as good a sort as any other, if perhaps proud in the way many Londoners were.
No, it was not Willoughby’s wife that Elinor feared. It was Willoughby himself. Never able to contain his passions, proven capable of immortal conduct, chafing at the bonds of a loveless marriage - what might he be tempted to do? Elinor had no doubt of Marianne’s virtue, but she knew that any attempted renewal of their romance by Willoughby would have the worst possible effect upon her sister’s spirits.
For a moment she thought of Edward, also soon to be trapped in a marriage of no true affection. His behaviour would always be moderate and correct. Although he would take every care to avoid any future meeting, if one were unavoidable, he would be as kind as possible and prevent Lucy triumphing over her former rival. He would never again allude to the emotions that had once stirred between them.
Despite every element in her character that ought to have been against it, Elinor wished for one moment that he would.
The teakettle whistled, breaking her guilty reverie. She sighed in relief. Tea was indeed a sure remedy for many ills.
**
Not one week had passed before they saw the shining wheels of Willoughby’s curricle upon the path leading into the village. Though the sisters saw it at a distance, there was no mistaking it - no other in the parish owned a curricle, and Willoughby’s bearing and demeanour were unmistakable. Worse yet, the woman seated beside him, with a high jaunty plume upon her bonnet, seemed likely to be his wife.
“I shall be brave,” Marianne said. This was fully half the speech she had uttered since hearing of Willoughby’s return to Delaford. After such ominous silence, her determination came as a welcome surprise to Elinor. “I shall be very brave.”
“We are here with you, dearest.” Elinor looped her arm in Marianne’s.
Margaret also wished to help her sister, but she was too young to be sure of propriety, and weary after their long walk. “Will he not give us a ride in his carriage as he once did?”
“No, and do not ask him. Say nothing save good day.” Elinor remembered what good friends Willoughby and Margaret had once been. Yet when he had broken with Marianne, he had broken with them all.
They resumed walking, pretending not to see Willoughby as long as could be managed. His horses continued apace until Elinor thought he would simply ride past them without a word. She could not decide whether such a gesture would be unforgivable or a kindness. Yet at the last possible moment, he pulled upon the reins and came to a stop opposite them.
His wife was every bit the beauty that the gossips had said. She wore a white pelisse trimmed in brilliant vermillion, as well as the limerick gloves that every girl in London had been dreaming of. An embroidered Lyonese shawl was draped about her shoulders. Around her wrist lay a finely worked silver bracelet that gleamed in the sunlight. The cost of these clothes alone might have kept the Dashwood family in beef and sugar for many months. Elinor noted this with no disgust, only a lively awareness of the difficulties of their situation.
For his part, Willoughby’s handsome features were a perfect mask of ease and contentment he could not possibly have truly possessed. “The misses Dashwood. Good day to you all.”
“Good day,” piped Margaret, first of the three to find her voice. “I hope you enjoy the fine weather.”
“What a cunning child.” Mrs. Willoughby spoke this in tones that suggested she rarely saw children and preferred matters thus. “She must have taught herself manners.”
Conscious of her impoliteness, Elinor quickly said, “We welcome you to town, Mrs. Willoughby. I hope you find the countryside pleasing.”
Mrs. Willoughby’s smile focused upon Marianne, who stood silently by Elinor’s side. “Every place has its unique delights, I find.”
Such a brazen triumph at Marianne’s expense would have shamed any decent woman. Their mother’s assessment of her character had been proved accurate. Elinor turned her head away for a moment, to hide the embarrassment that would have so pleased the scornful Mrs. Willoughby. Before she could think of any possible reply, she glimpsed a familiar figure upon the road, coming toward them: the odd doctor they had met the day of the earth-quake.
Only the turmoil of Willoughby’s arrival in town could have turned her thoughts from this stranger, and the inexplicable events surrounding his arrival and injury. Still he wore the ill-fitting clothes they had seen that day, though he had added to this an extraordinarily long, hairy scarf of many colours. He caught sight of her only a moment after she had glimpsed him, and he responded by waving cheerily.
Any interruption from the present awkwardness was most welcome. “Good sir!” Elinor called. “We are pleased to see you well.”
“Just taking my morning constitutional. Glad to find the two of you about.” His grin proved to be as exaggerated as the rest of his features. Though Elinor could sense some shadows of the melancholy that had affected him before, he appeared determined to make a better show of himself on the present occasion.
“Whom have we here?” Willoughby asked, too eagerly. His composure, untroubled only moments prior, had begun to show the strain of their meeting. Marianne, for her part, looked as though she might faint at any second. They, too, strongly wished for a diversion. “You must be new to the neighbourhood, sir, as I do not believe I have the honour of your acquaintance. John Willoughby, at your service, and this is my wife, Sophia.”
Marianne flinched.
“New to the neighbourhood - you might say that, yes.” The stranger held out a hand, which was most forward but not audacious. “Name’s John Smith, but you’d as well call me the Doctor. Everyone does eventually.”
“The county will be glad of a new physician,” Willoughby said. “Mr. Davies is excellent, but already he has more patients than he has hours in the day.”
“He’ll have to look elsewhere for help with his work load,” the Doctor said. “I consider myself retired.”
“What a pity,” Elinor said, as it seemed the thing to say, though she could not envision the county matrons entrusting their health to an eccentric.
“Retired to live a life of leisure, while still in your prime.” Willoughby smiled. “I like a man who knows the value of pleasure.”
The Doctor’s gaze raked over the lines of the curricle, his smile becoming somehow a harder thing. “No doubt you do.”
Elinor realized that the Doctor had taken Willoughby’s full measure, and accurately so, most swiftly. Would that he had been present to counsel them months earlier.
Sophia Willoughby interjected, “How fortunate you walked by just now. We were just about to invite the misses Dashwood to a ball.” Once more she smiled, too brightly, at Marianne. “In honour of our new marriage. Of course we shall need someone there to dance with the unwed ladies. Will you come as well, Mr. Smith?”
“Doctor, please. And I make no promises. Though isn’t it kind of you to ask?”
The Doctor’s smile widened into an almost indecently broad grin. For a moment, Elinor believed that, although he was a good judge of the character of reckless young men, his wits entirely deserted him when presented with a pretty female. This would scarcely have been surprising, or unique. Then she glimpsed the shadow beneath his smile, the darkness within his gaze. It reminded her of Colonel Brandon, in a way - the sense of ever-constant grief that underlay every movement, though it was harder to spot behind this man’s supposedly merry countenance. He knew well that Mrs. Willoughby was not kind at all - and there was more to his demeanour, besides.
Alone, he had said in the meadow. Although Elinor suspected most of his speech at that time to have been mere ranting, she felt certain that word was this man’s truth.
Mrs. Willoughby told them the ball would be Friday next, and she particularly entreated the Doctor to attend. It was evident by her reactions that she found the Doctor most uncouth and thought him therefore the ideal escort for her former rival; this was the only imaginable motivation for her avid curiosity regarding him. Elinor accepted with the best grace she could muster, glancing frequently at Marianne to see how she fared. Marianne did not weep nor blush; instead she kept her eyes turned toward the Doctor, intent.
“Come, my dear,” Willoughby said, obviously impatient to extricate himself from Marianne’s company. “We must to the Grangers’, for you see it is almost noon.”
The Doctor raised his index finger. “Ah, one thing before you go - about that peacock feather in your hat -“
“They are quite the rage in London, though I can expect you see them but rarely in the country.” Mrs. Willoughby tossed her head, so that the feather would dance prettily.
“So much the rage that there’s quite a business in knockoffs.” The Doctor clasped his hands behind his back and rocked back and forth on his heels. “You’re not wearing peacock. You’re wearing emu. Dyed, I imagine. Just wanted to tell you that you’d best not get it wet.”
Mrs. Willoughby, aghast, put one hand to her bonnet, and her cheeks betrayed her embarrassment. “Sir - Fulham’s is the finest milliner on the West End. Surely you are mistaken.”
“I know my peacocks, and I know my emus - some personally, though we can’t really get into that right now - and that’s emu. And no need to be bashful! It’s easy to make the mistake when you’re not familiar with what’s genuine.” His smile changed slightly as he said, “Now, that bracelet you’ve got on - that’s genuine indeed.”
“Your assertions have been noted,” she said, taking her husband’s arm. “Mr. Willoughby, we must adieu.”
Willoughby raised his hat in farewell. His eyes briefly met Marianne’s, and Elinor felt the shock of their connexion so powerfully she wondered that either of them could bear it. Then he snapped the reins and freed them all from the situation.
As the curricle disappeared down the road, Elinor murmured, “I realize the motive for your interference was honourable, but there was no need to humiliate Mrs. Willoughby about her fashions.”
“Need? No. Desire? Oh, yes indeed.” The Doctor kept looking after the carriage, apparently deep in thought. “Someone has to stand up for the honour of the emu. Noble bird, really, though in appearance it is a bit on the goofy side.”
“Why didn’t you like Mrs. Willoughby?” Margaret piped up. “I mean, I know why we don’t like her, but I don’t know why you feel the same.”
Elinor shot her younger sister a reproving look, but like so many other such looks over the years, it went unheeded.
“It’s not my problem,” the Doctor muttered, as if to himself. Then he focused his attention on Margaret, and his smile proved much more kindly when it was truly felt. “The story’s clear enough. Mr. Willoughby threw over your lovely sister here for another woman. That makes him a cad. His wife is foolish enough to think his behaviour reflects well on her. That makes her all sorts of things it’s not nice to call a lady.”
“He married her because she’s rich, and he’d lost his own money,” Margaret confided.
“Margaret.” Elinor glanced at Marianne, who remained calm, and continued to look at the Doctor. “You must not speak of such things.”
“I didn’t tell him about Willoughby! He already knew! I don’t see why we mightn’t explain if he already knows the really bad parts.”
It was fortunate that the Doctor chose this moment to change the subject of their discourse. “Like I said earlier, I truly am glad to see you.” His voice was less merry than before, and for once he seemed to be talking entirely sensibly. “To thank you for your help when I was hurt. The two of you went to a great deal of trouble to assist a stranger, and one who was being rather rude to you in the bargain. People that good are too rare, on this world or any other.”
There was that odd turn of phrase again, but none of the Dashwood sisters dwelled long upon it.
The Doctor clapped his hands together, cheerful again, except for his eyes. “Now, let’s see, how would you put it these days - ah, yes. Might I have the pleasure of knowing to whom I am indebted?”
“I am Miss Dashwood, of Barton Cottage,” said Elinor. “You remember my sister, Miss Marianne, and this is our youngest sister, Margaret.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” said Margaret, clearly happy to again be on sure social footing.
Marianne finally spoke, “You did not reveal our lack of any prior acquaintance while Willoughby and - while they were still here. You were quite careful to avoid that.”
“Thought it might look better if you had a friend on your side, though I admit I probably cut a strange figure, as friends go,” the Doctor said. His blithe admission - and Marianne’s insight - startled Elinor.
“Your cuts have healed very nicely,” Marianne continued. “In fact, I cannot see any evidence of your injury.”
The Doctor’s smile dimmed, and yet in his countenance Elinor thought she saw a more genuine respect. “Comes of having such fine nurses on hand, I suppose.”
This was no answer, and now that Elinor attended to Marianne’s words, she was startled by the lack of any marks upon the Doctor whatsoever. He had been sorely injured when they came upon him in the field; now, he was whole, when any other would still have been swathed in bandages.
Margaret asked, “Will you not come to tea? You could meet our mother, and then we can all be friends. We can’t be friends with men Mamma hasn’t met.” She added plaintively, “I don’t know why.”
“Yes,” Marianne said, surprising Elinor. “Please do come to tea. I should like to continue our acquaintance, and if you are to remain here, you will wish to join our local society.” She spoke with sincerity, and yet there was that in her words that suggested a test.
“I’ll be around for longer than you can imagine.” The Doctor’s gaze became set and hard. “For many years I was a traveller but - my work is done. I’m finished with all of it. No more travelling.”
“I’m glad you’re having tea with us,” Margaret confided. “We have biscuits, too.”
“Can’t have proper tea without the biscuits.” How odd it was that the Doctor could say such a thing, and smile, and somehow seem sadder than he ever had before.
**
The Doctor was not to be their only guest at tea-time, for when they returned to Barton Cottage, they discovered Mrs. Jennings and Sir John Middleton already in the drawing room. Elinor made what introductions she could, amid Sir John’s hearty invitations to go shooting and Mrs. Jennings’ efforts to determine whether the Doctor was a married man. Upon receiving a rather decided negative answer, Mrs. Jennings’ interest was immediate. Elinor hurried to the kitchen to help Betsy, lest she become the subject of the latest attempt at matchmaking.
Marianne hastened behind her. “Is not this curious?” she whispered. “Our Doctor is a most mysterious figure.”
“Are you proclaiming him a wizard once more?” Elinor put together a new tray as best she could, but Betsy had not made enough biscuits - little wonder, as they had been expecting no guests but had three.
“Follow my reasoning, Elinor - and yes, I too have reason, if I am not always as quick to employ it. The Doctor said he has travelled much, and we may infer that he is truthful from his familiarity with exotic birds. He is a medical man, and therefore not a gentleman, yet he has enough fortune to pursue no profession if he chooses. This fortune he has acquired at no greater an age than that of Colonel Brandon.”
Elinor smiled slightly at this from her sister, who had until recently considered Colonel Brandon to be superannuated beyond the reach of human feeling. Truly, the Colonel’s many kindnesses during her sister’s convalescence were beginning to bear fruit.
“And something very terrible has saddened him,” Marianne said. “For I believe that his past has been much blighted.”
Dearly though Elinor wished to curtail her sister’s tendency toward speculation, she had to admit that all these statements seemed likely. “We must not pry. I think he would little care for that.”
“You are right, I am sure. Perhaps - perhaps he was a physician in the navy, and he married a woman of higher birth. His honour would not permit him to abandon his profession and live upon her fortune. But then she died - oh, I hope not in childbirth, how terrible - she died and left him her wealth. So now he is free as she wished, but can take no pleasure in his change in circumstance.” This poured from Marianne quite breathlessly. “Poor man. How he must suffer!”
“If indeed your story bore any resemblance to fact, it would be tragic indeed. Yet we cannot know that, and we will not be so unkind as to test your wild theories.”
“Those are not wild theories. Those are very sensible theories. We shall require wild theories to explain his house being bigger on the inside, or how he cannot be scarred. There, I do not know what to believe.”
More fantasies, of the sort that would do Marianne no good. Elinor thrust the tea-tray at her. “Do not dwell upon it until we have the leisure to consider. We will feel more settled once tea is served.”
“You think tea solves everything,” Marianne said.
From the parlour they heard the pianoforte, though the song issuing from it was unlike any other with which they were familiar. To Elinor the sound was more like clamour than music, despite its oddly compelling quality. The sisters exchanged a look before hurrying back to the parlour.
The Doctor sat at the pianoforte’s keyboard, bashing out the tune with undisguised glee. Sir John clapped in time, a broad grin upon his face, as Mrs. Jennings and Margaret danced as best they could with only one another for partners. Even Mrs. Dashwood nodded her head and smiled broadly, and when the Doctor finished with a flourish, all applauded.
“What a jaunty tune!” exclaimed Mrs. Jennings. “I swear, I never heard its like. So thrilling! Quite the thing for dancing. Tell us, what is it called?”
“Blue Suede Shoes.” The Doctor closed the pianoforte lid with apparent regret. “Hasn’t quite caught on in London yet, but give it time.”
“Capital!” Sir John thumped the Doctor’s shoulder. “Yes, we’ll want to hear more of your daring new songs. We may demand a recital of you one day. “
Mrs. Jennings interjected, “You see, at our house, you must sing for your supper!”
“An entirely reasonable requirement.” The Doctor did not seem intimidated by Mrs. Jennings in the slightest, which said much for his courage. “Though, truth be told, Mrs. J., it’s best all around if I don’t sing. Let me tickle the ivories and someone else can provide the pipes.”
These peculiar twists of phrase silenced Mrs. Jennings for but a moment. “Such jokes you make. There’s something of the schoolboy in you yet, good Doctor.”
“Hah.” The Doctor accepted his tea and nodded when Elinor offered him a lump of sugar. His too-short coat sleeves showed a fair measure of his wrists, and once again she wondered how he could simultaneously be genteel and uncouth. “I’ve not been a schoolboy in more years than you could count, Mrs. J.”
“Bless you, and me old enough to be your mother.” Mrs. Jennings’ expression took on a cast that was not unfamiliar to Elinor, who winced in anticipation. “Tell me, Doctor, have you never considered having a few schoolboys of your own? Surely there is some woman in the parish who would make you a fine wife. Why, she might be closer than you think.”
She smiled benevolently at Elinor, who felt at that moment it would be better to take to a nunnery than to remain an unmarried woman within reach of Mrs. Jennings.
“I shall live the rest of my days alone,” the Doctor said. He spoke simply, yet there was that in his voice as would ensure the end of any jests about his unwed state, even from the indefatigable Mrs. Jennings. Elinor admired this and hoped someday to emulate it.
“You shall not be alone, not so long as my dear Mamma and I have a place at our table,” declared Sir John. “And that is every day of the week. Rest assured, Doctor, you have friends in Delaford.”
“It seems that I do.” The Doctor looked as though he did not know how to take this news, as well he might not, when presented with Mrs. Jennings and Sir John.
Margaret, still bouncing on her heels from the excitement of the dancing, asked, “Will you play that song at the Willoughbys’ ball? Everyone will like it, I know.”
“The Willoughbys’ ball?” Mrs. Dashwood rose to her feet. “What is this?”
Elinor would have spared Marianne the pain of speaking of it, but Marianne faced the matter bravely, saying, “We met them upon the road, Mamma. They have asked us to a ball at his aunts’ home. No doubt Barton Park will receive an invitation as well. And I fear there is nothing for it but that we must attend.”
“Never shall I set foot in that house!” Mrs. Dashwood swept grandly from the room, though in Barton Cottage she had nowhere to sweep toward, save the kitchen, which was not at all grand. Elinor quickly handed her mother’s tea to Margaret, who dutifully followed after.
Sir John shook his head. “It’s a bad bit of business. Nobody would blame you if you were to absent yourself, my dear.” He petted Marianne’s hand.
“I see that you are acquainted with the sad state of affairs, Doctor.” Mrs. Jennings’ broad face could, at times, reflect genuine sympathy. “Mind you, I am half inclined to avoid their company myself. For I met them in town yesterday afternoon, and so shocking was their conduct!”
This struck Elinor as odd. Though Mrs. Willoughby had been most unkind, her behaviour had not been remarkable save in its venom. Mrs. Jennings was unlikely to notice any deviation from proper decorum unless it was extreme. “What do you mean, Mrs. Jennings?”
“Well. Quite the lady of fashion, so she would have herself. How she kept flashing that bracelet of hers in my eyes! Blinding.” Mrs. Jennings drank deeply of her tea. “Showing off, I expect. And such nerve. ‘I command thee’ this, ‘I command thee’ that. She’ll soon learn I’m not so easily commanded! Willoughby sat there through it all without one word to her. He is a good-for-nothing, Marianne, and you are well rid of him.”
“Yes,” Marianne said. “I believe I am.” Her voice had no feeling, her words no animation to express true emotion.
Elinor frowned. “Doctor?”
The Doctor had put his head in his hands and his elbows on the lid of the pianoforte. Beneath his breath, he was whispering, barely loud enough for Elinor to hear, “It’s not my problem. It’s not my problem.”
But she thought he did not believe his words any more than Marianne.
Sir John said, “Come now, man, out with it. Shall we see you at this ball for the odious Willoughbys, or shall we not?”
Slowly the Doctor raised his head. He said nothing as he took a deep breath and readjusted the woolly scarf around his neck. His expression was determined in a way Elinor had not seen before, and she thought in that moment that she had, at last, beheld the true man.
“Yes,” the Doctor said grimly. “I feel like a spot of dancing.”
**
concluded in next post
Part Two can be found here!