Willoughby's Return_ A Tale of Almost Irresistible Temptation - Jane Odiwe [6]
“I have a letter from Marianne,” Mrs Dashwood announced as she came through the door a minute later, putting down her basket but omitting to remove her cloak and bonnet before she sat down. She loved to hear Marianne's news and with impatient fingers undid the seal.
“Dearest Mama and Margaret,” she read out loud, “I hope this letter finds you well, as we all are here. I know you will be as excited as I am to hear William's good news. His nephew, Henry Lawrence, is coming home to Whitwell at last. William is anxious to welcome him and has suggested that we invite Henry and all the Lawrences to Delaford with a view to reacquainting him with our family. Is that not good news? I have heard that he is a very pleasant, handsome young man, Margaret.”
“Am I never to be free from Marianne's schemes for matchmaking?” groaned Margaret. “There is not a man alive in Devonshire or Dorsetshire who has not been made to stand up with me by my sister. Nor is there one who has yet lived up to my expectations from descriptions exaggerated by old friends and neighbours. How many handsome young men do we hear thus chronicled, who have nonetheless turned out to be very far from pleasing to the eye and years past their youth?”
“Come, Margaret, you are a little hard on your friends. I am sure you thought Charles Carey quite handsome enough at one time. He was very smitten with you, I know, and I daresay that is why he has gone off to sea. You have quite broken his heart.”
“Mother! Charles is a dear friend, but that is all. There never was the romance you suspect. For one thing, he is too practical, too prudent for my taste. For another, he does not like poetry, scoffing at any mention of Cowper's cool colonnades or Wordsworth's dizzy raptures.”
“I always thought Marianne the one with the most romantic sensibility, but I think I have been mistaken. And whilst I admire a lofty crag or babbling rill as much as the next person, I do not know if it is wise to cast off eligible young men simply because they do not wax lyrical on a sofa or shady dell.”
“Mama, you love to tease me but I will never compromise. Perhaps I should not say so, but there has only ever been one man who matched my idea of manly perfection. But his name is never uttered here now and I know you will be cross if I so much as mention him.”
“I cannot think to whom you refer, Margaret—James Whitaker perhaps?”
She gave a sideways glance at her mother. “No, he is not the man. It is John Willoughby.”
“John Willoughby!” her mother exclaimed. She studied Margaret's face, folding the letter and setting it down upon the table.
Margaret took a deep breath before speaking her thoughts out loud. “I know I was hardly fourteen years of age when he came to court my sister, but John Willoughby stole my heart as well as hers, though I am sure no one suspected as much. There, I have dared to say his name.”
“Well, do not speak it again, I beg you. I do not know what you can be thinking, Margaret, after the way he treated Marianne. I have forgiven him in my own way of course, and indeed have felt quite sorry for him, but I hope I shall never set eyes on him ever again, nor have cause to wonder about him in any way. I am quite ashamed of you.”
“What else does Marianne say?” Margaret asked, turning the subject back to the letter's contents as quickly as she could.
“And I am glad to say that I have never seen Mr Willoughby in these parts,” her mother replied, completely ignoring her. “He has not visited Allenham often, I believe, since his marriage to Miss Grey, though by all accounts I hear old Mrs Smith is to leave the estate to him after all. Lucky for him that I have not bumped into him in Barton on his trips into Devonshire!”
“I doubt he has ventured as near as Barton, Mama, nor would he wish to, for fear of encountering Mrs Jennings. I believe she gave him a piece of her mind when