Margaret Dashwood's Diary

by Elliott, Anna

  Tuesday 29 June 1802

  At least I now know where Mr. Palmer has been disappearing to at night. And that he is not in fact a villain.

  Well, actually he is a sneak and a louse (even I cannot find evidence that that description is unfair to lice), but he is not a smuggler, at any rate.

  After I had returned from finding Jamie last night—after I had set this book down—I decided to go downstairs to the library once more, to see whether I could find a book that would send me to sleep. Or rather, to see whether I could find a book that would make me cease to relive, over and over again, the moment of Jamie sending me away like an unwanted and slightly tiresome servant.

  I put on my dressing gown and slippers and tiptoed quietly downstairs. This time, I was passing the door that leads from the morning room out onto the terrace when I heard it—low voices and a stir of movement from outside. My first thought, of course, was that it was Marianne again. Marianne, and perhaps Willoughby, as well. I swiftly blew out my candle and flung the door wide—and froze, feeling more shocked than I believe I have ever been in my life. Outside on the terrace—perched on one of the decorative wrought-iron benches—were Mr. Palmer and Sophia Willoughby. Locked in a passionate—a very passionate—embrace.

  The sound of the door knocking against its frame made them startle and break apart—and then we all three stood staring at one another. I am not sure which of us was the most embarrassed. I had not even done anything wrong, but I could still feel the blood rushing to my cheeks. And I was conscious of a wild, hysterical desire to laugh, as well—the situation was so ludicrously absurd.

  Sophia was staring at me with the look of a bird trapped by the gaze of a snake; her eyes were glassy with something between panic and disbelief. Mr. Palmer’s hair was rumpled and his cravat was undone, the ties of his shirt unfastened. I supposed—I felt the bubble of laughter press against my ribcage again—Sophia must have done it sometime during their embrace.

  Sophia was the first to recover herself. She made an indeterminate squawk—sounding, now, as well as looking, rather like a panicked bird—and sprang up, running off across the darkened lawn and vanishing into the night. I cannot imagine that she asked her servants to drive her to an illicit tryst in her carriage—so I suppose she must have had a horse waiting somewhere nearby.

  Mr. Palmer did not go after her; apparently his passion did not extend to wanting to make sure that his paramour did not trip and sprain something in the dark. Instead, he straightened under my shocked gaze and asked, “Are you going to tell my wife?”

  Up until that moment, I had been shocked, I had been embarrassed, I had felt half hysterical amusement at the idea of Mr. Palmer being half of anyone’s tryst—much less Sophia Willoughby’s. But that night alone, I had seen Jamie nearly killed, had been held hostage and threatened by Mr. Merryman, had found and said good-bye to Jamie all over again. At that moment, I felt something hot and angry crack open inside me.

  “Can you give me one good reason why I should not?” I demanded. Mr. Palmer started to speak, but I cut him off. “Your wife loves you. Heaven only knows why, but she does. She is utterly blind to all your faults and is nothing but delighted with your every action and word. And this is the way you repay her?”

  Mr. Palmer straightened—with a half-hearted attempt at his usual superior, disdainful look. “Love is all very well. But an educated, cultivated mind such as mine requires a greater degree of sympathy—of shared understanding—”

  I snorted. Very unladylike, but I did not care. “And that is what you have found with Sophia Willoughby? Sympathy and understanding? And besides, you should have thought of that before you married Charlotte. It is not as though anyone held a knife to your back and forced you to propose to her. And she certainly does her utmost to make you a good wife. If you have even a scrap of decency in you, you will devote yourself to making her an equally good husband.”

  Mr. Palmer said nothing, only looked at me, his rather prominent Adam’s apple rising and falling above the unfastened collar of his shirt. I turned and went back inside—and never did get to the library to retrieve a book.

  This morning at breakfast, Mr. Palmer announced that he and Mrs. Palmer would be leaving directly, that very afternoon—starting out for Cleveland. Charlotte beamed at her husband across her plate of kippered herrings and toast. “He is so very agreeable, is he not?” she said in an aside to me. “He said that since my ankle is so much better, he cannot bear that we are parted from little William for another day.”

  And now they are gone. Perhaps some of what I said to Mr. Palmer will have sunk in. Perhaps he will try to be a better husband.

  Though that does not stop me from feeling thoroughly grim and vaguely sad now. It is just as Elinor said—how few, how very few married couples actually love—or even like—each other. Even if it is his own fault for having married her, I cannot entirely blame Mr. Palmer for feeling unsatisfied by his marriage to Charlotte. Just as I cannot imagine that Sophia’s marriage to Willoughby is a happy one—and she has not even any children to give her more of an interest or purpose in life.

  And coupled with all of that are my memories of last night—which return in hideous clarity however hard I try to push them aside. Did I really track Jamie down and kiss him—again? Force him to send me away—again? And on top of all of that, make him promise that we would have at least one more meeting—so that I might embarrass us both still more?

  Perhaps I ought to have gone straight to the library last night instead of to my room to write my last entry. Because I now have clear, written proof that yes, I really did do all of those things. It is just—

  It is just that I cannot shake a feeling—the same feeling that I had before. I cannot seem to shake off a bone-deep conviction that I failed Jamie in being so easily turned away. That despite sending me away from him—and even if he did not know it himself—what Jamie really needed was for me to stay, to prove to him that for once in his life, he need not face troubles alone.

  Later

  I have a few minutes before the ball guests begin to arrive, and I shall have to go downstairs. Tonight is the night both of Colonel Brandon’s return, and of Marianne’s party. We were busy all day with getting ready. Elinor—looking recovered from the other day, but still pale—arrived in the morning, and helped Marianne and me with cutting flowers from the garden and arranging them to decorate the ballroom. And then Marianne insisted on the three of us working to make over one of her gowns to fit me, since I brought nothing with me she deemed suitable for a ball. Which really meant that I stood on a chair in my room and let her and Elinor fit the gown to me—because, as Marianne bluntly said, I am completely dismal with a needle, and she would not trust me anywhere close to a London modiste–made silk gown.

  Today, however, Marianne was very nearly as inept as I am. She pricked me three times while she was pinning up the skirt so that it might be hemmed—scowling ever more fiercely with her mouth full of pins each time I squeaked in protest.

  Finally, the gown was pinned to her satisfaction. I—carefully—took it off, and Marianne and Elinor were seated, Elinor working on tucking in the waist and Marianne on the hem.

  Marianne still wielded her needle as though the blue silk were a personal enemy, though. And after she had snapped at us for the third time in as many minutes, Elinor and I exchanged a glance.

  Then Elinor said, trying for a light tone, “Is something wrong, Marianne? I confess that I don’t see what you have to be out of temper about. Margaret is the one who has spent the past hour being used for a human pincushion.”

  “I’m sorry.” Marianne straightened, pressing her hands to the small of her back, as though it ached. But then she caught sight of the clock on the mantel, gave a little exclamation of surprise, and said, “Is that the time? I must go and … and get dressed myself.” She smiled—though it looked strained—and added, “You will look lovely in the gown, Margaret, truly.”

  Elinor and I exchanged anothe
r look after she had gone out. The gown that Marianne had given me was lovely: white sarcenet with an overdress of peacock-blue silk, embroidered with a design of silver acorns. Elinor helped me into it, and then she said—more or less reading my thoughts—“Was Willoughby invited tonight, do you know?”

  I shook my head. “I do not know. I wrote some of the invitations—but Marianne did most of them herself.” I felt abruptly cold all through—and I wished that I had thought to ask Jamie last night for a full explanation of what he was doing at Rosford Abbey. But I did not. I forgot entirely until I was back in my own room, and Jamie was gone. But at that moment, all my suspicions returned in full force. Bad enough if Marianne is simply entangled in an illicit affair with Willoughby. If he is also a traitor and a criminal—

  But I could not tell Elinor any of that. Not without her asking me how I had come by the information. So I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt, “There are two of us, and only one of Marianne. If we both try to keep an eye on her tonight, surely nothing untoward will happen.”

  Elinor nodded. She looked quite well—completely recovered from her illness of the other day. I paused uncertainly a moment, then asked, “Elinor, are you feeling—”

  She stopped me. “I’m quite all right. Thank you.” She gave me a twist of a smile—a sad twist of a smile. “It really was only something I ate.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “No. Don’t be.” Elinor straightened her shoulders. “It’s just as I told you before. I should be grateful for what I do have, not mourn what I do not.”

  At that moment, Eliza arrived with Joanna, who was protesting mightily the injustice of being put to bed before the ball even began. She gave way—reluctantly—only when I whispered to her that I would come up and see her during the evening, and bring her some of the ices and pastries from the desserts table.

  I meant to write more, but I can hear voices coming from the entrance hall which must mean that the first guests are beginning to arrive downstairs.

  Later still

  I am not sure that my hands will stop shaking long enough for me to write this. It does not seem possible that I set this book down only a few hours ago—feeling nothing more foreboding than impatience to get the whole tedious business of the ball over and done with.

  Right now, I am sitting in the Delaford parlour with Elinor. Edward is with Marianne upstairs; he came down an hour or two ago to say that there had been no change, and to tell us that we ought to get what rest we could.

  The clock has just chimed one o’clock in the morning, and the house is absolutely still. Both Elinor and I keep stiffening, jerking upright at every tiny sound from upstairs. But neither of us has spoken for some time. I think we are afraid—I know I am—of what we may say if we allow ourselves to talk. Fears that have not yet been voiced aloud always seem less real. And I am afraid that the moment I open my mouth, what will emerge is, “What if Colonel Brandon should die?”

  But I ought to set this all down in proper order. There is nothing for me to do—nothing but wait and worry, and swallow those words down each time they try to rise to my lips.

  To begin where I left off, then, I went down and joined Marianne in greeting the guests as they arrived. Colonel Brandon, I was surprised to find, had not yet arrived. Some of his officers had come, saying that he had been delayed on the road, but would join us as soon as he could. Marianne seemed not at all disappointed by her husband’s absence—nor did she seem surprised. Which I did think was odd at the time. But I had little opportunity to consider her behaviour. There were so many guests—over one hundred in all. And if Marianne still seemed to me slightly tense or anxious, she seemed also determined to play the part of hostess to perfection, making introductions and finding dance partners for girls who had none.

  The Willoughbys were in fact in attendance—both of them. Though so far as I had the chance to observe, Marianne had scarcely any interaction with either, beyond greeting them as they arrived.

  In light of our last meeting, I had no idea of how my next encounter with Sophia would go. But I need not have worried. She simply looked straight through me and sailed by without speaking a word.

  The rest of the ball—

  But on second thought, I do not think that I can manage a full account of the evening’s entertainment. The ballroom looked lovely—wreathed with flowers and lighted by hundreds of wax candles in the chandeliers. The ladies looked like flocks of bright birds in their richly coloured silks and satin ball gowns, the men handsome in their black and white evening dress.

  And yet now, in memory, it all seems even sillier and more insipid than it did at the time. Ladies and gentlemen gracefully paying and accepting compliments; everyone talking a great deal without actually saying anything at all. I cannot believe that I ever persuaded myself to pretend that I enjoy such affairs.

  I danced a few times, with some of Colonel Brandon’s officers—who were creating quite a stir among the ladies present. To be fair, they were nice boys, all of them. The sort of men I would have enjoyed dancing with at one time.

  I kept my promise to Joanna and slipped upstairs to see her—entering her room on tiptoe in case she was asleep. Though I ought to have known better. I found her sitting bolt upright in bed, her eyes wide as an owl’s, waiting for me. She devoured the lemon ice and the dish full of gooseberry fool that I had brought her, and then—her lips still smeared with whipped cream—asked, “Is my mother dancing?”

  I had seen Eliza dancing, in fact. With M. de Courtenay—and then sitting down to supper besides. I was not sure how Joanna would feel about a gentleman paying attentions to her mother. So I said, casually, “Yes, I think so. Your friend M. de Courtenay asked her to stand up with him.”

  “Oh, good—the worm man. He was very nice. I liked him.” Joanna smothered a yawn with one hand. “I was afraid that my mother wouldn’t know how to dance. She has never been to a ball that I can remember. I made her practise with me in the garden today, though, and show me what steps she knew, and she seemed to do all right.”

  It was when I was going back downstairs—Joanna having consenting to being tucked in and kissed goodnight—that a flicker of movement caught my eye. I was passing through the saloon, the windows of which open onto the terrace. And it was outside on the terrace that I saw something—or rather someone—move.

  One of Colonel Brandon’s officers—or so I thought at first. There was bright moonlight outside, bright enough for me to make out the red coat of an army uniform as the man stood with his back to me. But then I looked more closely, and felt my heart jerk and then quicken.

  In the moment I stood frozen, too stunned to move, he moved farther away down the terrace. By the time I had fumbled open the latch of the French windows with shaking fingers and stepped onto the terrace myself, he was several paces away—stooped over to pet Ginger, who was once again visiting from the stables. The cat was purring and twining about his ankles—which was oddly steadying, persuading me that I was not merely imagining his presence here.

  I cleared my throat. “I told you that you had not lost your gift with animals.”

  Jamie looked up quickly, his muscles tensing and then relaxing again as he recognised me. I crossed the terrace to join him—trying to ignore the way the blood raced dizzyingly in my veins at the sight of him. “You should not be here,” I said in a low voice. “What if you were to be seen?”

  “That was why I wore the uniform—so that I might blend in with the other army men about tonight.” Jamie glanced down at his red coat with a brief half-smile. “It is my own uniform, too—you need not worry that I will get into difficulties for wearing it. Even if I were to be seen.”

  “But what are you doing here?”

  I felt a hitch in my chest as I stared at him. He was impossibly handsome—almost a stranger, and yet not a stranger at all. The army uniform set off his broad chest and lean hips. He had at some point shaved the stubble of beard from his chin, and his black hair w
as for once neatly combed, even if it was still over-long.

  Every part of me wanted to close the distance between us and touch him. But he made no move to reach out to me, only stood without moving, his eyes shadowed in the moonlight. “I promised that I would see you again.”

  “I did wonder”—I drew in an unsteady breath—“whether you were sorry that you had made that promise.” I was grateful for the darkness that hid the flush I could feel rising to my cheeks.

  Instead of answering, Jamie nodded abruptly farther along the terrace, to where light streamed from the windows of the ballroom. “I saw you inside there, earlier. Dancing with some man. That is where you belong. Not outside, in the shadows with me.”

  A month or even a few days ago, I might have felt merely angry—or mortified. I did feel a spark of temper jump along my veins. But instead of turning away or retreating, I drew a step nearer—near enough that I could look up into Jamie’s face. “Is that what you want?” I asked quietly. “That I should go back inside and keep dancing with other men? Captain Wainwright—he is one of my brother-in-law’s officers—tried to kiss me earlier. Perhaps I should have let him.”

  I could see Jamie’s whole body quivering almost imperceptibly, as though he were holding himself tightly in check. “Margaret, I—” He shut his eyes. “When you are as close to me as you are now, I cannot seem to remember who you are and who I am—and why the thought of us together is impossible. And right now I want nothing so much as to rip this Captain Wainwright’s head off with my bare hands.”

  I felt as though a door had been flung open inside my chest. “You need not.” I reached up to lay my hand against the side of Jamie’s face. I had taken off my gloves when I went upstairs to visit Joanna and never put them back on; now I felt Jamie’s lashes tickle against my fingers as he opened his eyes. I smiled. “All other considerations aside, he has very bad breath.”

  Jamie laughed again—a real laugh this time. But he sobered almost at once and simply stood, gazing down at me. “Te merav,” he said at last. I knew the words were those that begin marriage vows and other solemn, formal words of promise. The expression means, May I die.