While the family celebrated their news and General Tilney gallantly toasted to the expectation of Lord Dryden’s happiness, Eleanor sat back in her chair. Lord Dryden was engaged, and her hope of leaving Northanger gone. A clatter caught her attention, and she looked to see where Sir Charles had clipped his plate with his wine glass as he gestured with it for the servant to refill it.
Sir Charles was a single man, a baronet, and must have money if he was improving his estate. And her father would approve of introducing her as Lady Sudbury.
She felt Philip watching her, and when she turned from Sir Charles, she saw him subtly shake his head with a look of disgust and mouth the word “No.” Eleanor closed her eyes with a sigh. After what had happened to Henry and Catherine, she was already going to sacrifice love for control over her own life. She only had to change from Lord Dryden to Sir Charles.
While the ladies stood to leave the dining-parlour, Eleanor looked to Philip and gave him a resigned little nod.
* * *
“I amsorry you did not get to him first,” Alice whispered to her as she made the tea in the drawing room. “Lady Harriet only talks about horses. In fact, I think she looks like one.”
Eleanor absolutely refused to laugh.
“Lady Harriet will be a marchioness and can afford to buy whatever horse she wants,” Alice went on, “and George gets thirty thousand pounds and a wife so ugly no other man will want to seduce her.”
“You see, it might all end well enough.”
Alice gave her a disbelieving look. “You shall have to give up your plan. It would go against your honour and your character to try for an engaged man.”
Eleanor drew back. “I would never—no, I only have to change from your brother to Sir Charles Sudbury. A baronet might suit the general well enough, so long as he is rich.”
“Eleanor!” Alice cried, drawing her mother’s notice. “What about Mr Brampton?” she murmured.
“He already knows my intentions,” she said hurriedly as Lady Longtown came to the table. “Sir Charles Sudbury is now my object.”
“Is it not lovely news?” asked the marchioness. “Lady Harriet Burlington is an excellent choice.”
“Congratulations, ma’am,” Eleanor said kindly.
“I must write to my friends. Many of them are gathering in Kent this spring, and they can all hear the news at once,” she said, smiling widely. “Is she not a lovely choice for George?”
Although Eleanor had never met Lady Harriet, she immediately agreed since Alice looked incapable of doing so.
“My friends will be so pleased! Do you think that when Lord Vaughan goes to Kent in May, he would deliver another letter to them? They are in the same circles, you know.”
“I am sure that he would, ma’am.”
“Such lovely news to have all of that finally settled.”
Eleanor took her teacup and allowed Alice a turn at replying to all of Lady Longtown’s repeated pleasantries. As she sat by the fire, Philip was the first gentleman to come in. He rarely spent a long while at the table with the men, especially if they were unknown to him, or if General Tilney was amongst the group.
Philip does like to minimise his interactions with confrontational people.
She admired him for avoiding those whom he found antagonising and disagreeable. It prevented him from being rude or quarrelsome in turn. Some might call him mild, but she had always thought his actions came from a place of strength. After he had paid all the necessary compliments to Lady Longtown on the news of her son’s engagement, Philip sat by Eleanor on the sofa after he got his coffee and gave her a long look.
“Are you certain?” he asked gently. “He seems an absolute boor, Eleanor.”
“Then it is a good thing that I am the one who is trying to secure him, and not you.”
Philip sighed and lifted his eyes, and she wondered what the conversation in the dining room had been about. “I know it little matters to you what Frederick will think, but Henry will hate him. You know his ways: the mocking asides, the emphatic looks. He will not be able to keep his countenance around a man like Sir Charles Sudbury as his brother-in-law.”
How dreadful home will be now that Henry is banished and never to be spoken of.Eleanor wished she could marry a man her friends and family could esteem, but she needed to leave Northanger as soon as possible. “How many women get to be overly particular in their choice of a husband? What matters is that my father approves of the man.”
“What matters toyou?”
“What matters to me,” she said snappishly, “is that he respects my position at home and in public, and he not oppress me.”
Philip drew back. She was instantly sorry for losing her patience, and with one who was so dear to her. “I am sorry, but I have reached the limit of what I can tolerate under my father.”
