As Edmund’s body finds a rhythm with mine, the thoughts that have frightened me are now at my service. They are not about George Wickham, really, and perhaps they never were. This is about me and what I want and will let myself have. The thrills I remember goad me on, give strength to what is happening here. I am not afraid and not burdened by questions of the past. I stretch my neck back, cresting like the notes on a scale, and I gasp. My mind is clear because it is free.
Sense, Sensibility, and SnapdragonsELOISA JAMES
Margaret, the other sister, was a good-humoured well-disposed girl; but as she had already imbibed a good deal of Marianne’s romance, without having much of her sense, she did not, at thirteen, bid fair to equal her sisters at a more advanced period of life.
Jane Austen,Sense and Sensibility
I grew up in a literary household; my father wrote poetry and my mother short stories. Literature was a serious matter—which meant that the romance genre, like TV and white sugar, was banned. Thankfully, my mother’s polka-dotted Austen hardcovers were jammed in a bookshelf, left over from college.
I read and reread Austen’s novels with a critical eye; unbeknownst to myself, I was preparing for a lifetime of writing historical romance. To my mind,Sense and Sensibility’s claim to romance was dubious. Marianne was young and beautiful, albeit brokenhearted. Why should she give up and marry a man twenty years older? I fiercely disliked seeing her “sensibility” flattened into “sense.”
I was particularly indignant about Austen’s disdain for Marianne’s little sister. Margaret is described as having “imbibed” Marianne’s sensibility “without having much of her sense.” Who would want the pragmatism that sent Marianne into the colonel’s arms? Austen concludes with biting condescension that Margaret “did not, at thirteen, bid fair to equal her sisters at a more advanced period of life.”
I wrote this novella for my thirteen-year-old self, indignant at not being allowed to read “real” romances and critical of the literary romances I was allowed. My Margaret is a version of myself, a young woman with a lifetime of writing novels ahead of her. Her sensibility—not her sense—leads a gentleman to fall in love with her.
Back then, I had no idea how much my rereading of Austen would teach me about the art of writing novels about love. I am endlessly grateful.
Delaford, Dorsetshire, the estate of Colonel Brandon and his wife, Marianne, née Dashwood
I sit down to begin my memoir at four o’clock in the afternoon on September 1, 1816.
(Or is itmemoirs? For some reason that sounds better.)
My name is Miss Margaret Dashwood, and this account is fodder for my first novel. I plan to write a romance akin to those of Miss Jane Austen, but—to be frank, as a novelist must—the material I have at hand inclines toward tragedy.
My eldest sister, Elinor, claims to have married for love, but one would never know, given the lack of affection she and her husband display in public. Mr. Ferrars is a cleric, but would it injure his dignity to touch her hand or do more than smile at her across the table? I am frightfully fond of him, but he’s no romantic hero: His face is long, his jaw angular, and his eyes never flash or spit fire, even when Elinor is snubbed by a cantankerous parishioner.
My second sister, Marianne, decided at the age of fourteen that her married household must encompass two carriages, a full complement of staff, and a stable of hunters (which means a gamekeeper and grooms)—which considerably narrowed the field of prospective spouses, given her lack of dowry. She fell violently in love with a lout named Willoughby, who did keep hunters, but after he jilted her for an heiress, Marianne married a wealthy, albeit somewhat elderly, suitor.
I am certain that Delaford, Colonel Brandon’s estate, trumped love—and what’s more, his income is three times Willoughby’s,which must have been very satisfying. He doesn’t have just a gamekeeper, but five sitting rooms! Her marriage proved a good turn for the whole family, as Colonel Brandon gave Mr. Ferrars a parish and me a handsome dowry. (Thank goodness!)
Unlike my sisters, I intend to be the romantic heroine of my own life and marry for passion rather than settle for sensible affection. To love is to beon fire, the way Juliet was. Marianne described her love for Willoughby as striking her like lightning, a description I’ve never forgotten. There should be burning and raging. Eyes should blaze like meteors. No,heartsshould blaze like meteors.
The only problem is that I haven’t experienced it, and no one has blazed at the sight of me, either. My family laughs at my ambition, judging Elinor intelligent, whereas I’m supposedly silly and romantic. I think they also secretly consider me selfish because I rejected a future marquess during my only Season in London.
Apparently, my worth as a woman is shackled to my future spouse’s title and wealth—but after I publish this novel to great acclaim, they’ll eat their words.
I plan to use these memoirs to report every detail of Marianne’s upcoming hunting party so that I can use it later for romantic detail. My sister has invited any number of eligible young gentlemen and ladies, so I’m certain to witness Cupid’s flaming arrows, even if I don’t fall in love myself. She has invited two barons and two knights (the peerage is judged above my touch), supposedly for hunting and shooting, but in reality, to size me up. Of course, she’s invited another girl or two to make it less obvious, but everyone knows.
Hunt for pigeons in the morning; assess the heiress in the evening. I sometimes wonder if the reason I haven’t fallen in love is because I’ve become frightfully cynical (I’m romantic in ambitionbut cynical in spirit). Or perhaps I’m not attracting the right men. I wish I were as smart as Marianne is sensitive, or as stunning as Elinor is sensible. Alas, rather than having a romantic heroine’s rippling hair and a nymphlike figure, I share the woes of many of my countrywomen: I have red hair, a plumpish figure, and large feet.
When I was seven years old, my friend Squibby told me that I resembled a tomato with carrot legs and beetroot feet. The horror of his assessment has weighed on me ever since. My hair color I can do nothing about; I’d blame the beets on my favorite red boots, but my lower half’s similarity to root vegetables has only grown since. I have slender legs and blocky feet.
I write this with composure, but my feet have caused me many tears. It’s unfair that gentlemen happily stomp around in Hessian boots, flaunting their feet, whereas ladies are supposed to tiptoe on their dainty toes. I hide my feet as much as possible, by tucking them under a chair, for example.
On the plus side, I’m quite pretty (I take after Marianne), and Colonel Brandon’s dowry makes me an heiress. I plan to model my novel on Mrs. Frances Burney’sCecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress, given that Cecilia’s dowry and mine are identical—but my novel will be more realistic. For example, Mortimer finds out that Cecilia loves him after she confides in a dog. Absurd! I could have told Mrs. Burney that readers would roll their eyes at that ploy.
My main suitor to this point has been he of the tomato metaphor, Baron Hugh Skelmers Vaughan, whose family owns the estate next to Norland Park, where I grew up. Being sadly fixated on the trappings of wealth, Marianne keeps pointing out that Squibby will be a marquess someday and has a personal fortune of thirty thousand pounds, as well as whatever else he inherits.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t marry Squibby, dear friend though he is. For one thing, I don’t think he really wants to; I suspect his mother forced him to propose. For another, there’s nothing romantic about a man who thinks of you as a tomato and remembers you eating worms—which was entirely his fault, I might add. When I was three and he was six, he dared me to eat a worm and shrieked with delight when I obliged. Our nannies came running, and we were banished to the nursery for the rest of the day.
He hadn’t learned to read, so I read him a book, which I made up, as I didn’t know my letters, either. Since then, he has routinely overestimated my intelligence, which I appreciate, given my family’s withering assessment.
My debut Season in London two years ago climaxed with Squibby offering me a diamond ring and eternal devotion, which I rejected for the above reasons, along with my determination to marry for love. He was clearly unmoved by my refusal—I had scarcely seen him all Season (he loathes balls), so his proposal was certainly not prompted by a passionate wish to be with me.
The wretched truth is that I thought he’d try again, or at the least court me. Send a bouquet of violets or ask me for a waltz. Instead, he left for France without saying goodbye, which made his feelings clear. He’d been there a few months when war was declared (again), after which he traveled around Europe for another year. I’m glad he wasn’t imprisoned like Frances Burney’s husband, but I was poisonously jealous, all the same. More than anything—perhaps even romance—I would love to travel.
I plan to send my fictional heroine to picturesque areas such as Corsica, which is somewhere in Italy and reportedly full of craggy cliffs and men wielding daggers. This gives me an idea: I shall copy some of Squibby’s letters from his Grand Tour into this journal so that I can use them later. An author must ruthlessly steal thematerial she needs. I’ve noticed any number of authors steal from Miss Austen, for example. How many Darcys can be insolently strolling around ballrooms, scowling because the ladies aren’t pretty enough for them? (As a fervent reader: The answer islots.)
