She was just as furious with Philip. No kindness, no patience, no appreciation could be expected from her father, but for Philip to say in that inn that he had lost respect for her had shocked her to the core. She had never before been so insulted; and was she not insulted, subjugated every time her father spoke to her? Had Lord Vaughan not insulted her when he hinted that she might not be faithful? But Philip had never disappointed her, never disrespected her; and then that night he was disgusted by her, and threw her out of his room.
She was not angry over his not wanting her to stay. That was wisest, and it was what they had agreed to in January. It was the coldness in his eyes that hurt. Philip had been silent since they returned from Longtown Castle, but perhaps his characteristic shyness made it so no one but she noticed. He was still silent at breakfast, parting from everyone politely and scarcely inclining his head in her direction as he left to return to Gloucestershire.
Eleanor looked out the window and saw Philip enter the stable yard. The desire to speak her mind one last time rose in her, and she ran down the stairs. He was patting the nose of his chestnut mare when she charged up to him.
“Do you still have no respect for me,” she asked coldly, “or did what happened in the drawing room yesterday with my father remind you of how painfully I am situated?”
He gave his horse one final pat before turning. “I respect your manner of bearing your suffering, and I do not doubt the severity of it, but what you are choosing is worse in my mind.” She opened her mouth, but he said, “Yes, youarepainfully situated with the general, but I can think of no one worse for you than Sir Charles.”
He walked away, but Eleanor followed him, and Philip dismissed his servant to avoid anyone hearing more. “You are not a woman, Philip! I can only accept what is presented to me. I run the chance of having a worse offer, and Sir Charles does not need to be loved as a husband, loved as you want to be loved.”
Philip flinched. “The last thing I need to hear is how you think I need to be loved, since you are choosing not to love me yourself.”
Her pain on hearing this was acute. As though she could just as easily choose to be with the man she loved, but was choosing Sir Charles instead. What a severe blow for him to not understand her decision. But she was an expert at not allowing anyone who hurt her to see the damage they had done. She and Philip had never said the words, although she had always known Philip loved her. This was the closest either of them had ever come, and after what he had said to her, she certainly was not going to say it now.
“My interest,” she said softly, “as you must know, is not for love with Sir Charles. It is in pursuit of a domestic sphere over which I will have some control, and how that shall overlap with his political one. It might be interesting to be needed and useful, and admired for what benefits I bring to his circle.”
Philip rolled his eyes. “He does not listen to you. He will never listen to you.”
“He will listen to me more than does my father.” Eleanor shrugged. “Every man likes to talk upon his own subjects, those that he understands even if his companion is not particularly acquainted with it. Sir Charles is not unique in that way.”
“He does not love you!” he cried.
“He has a love of my person.”
“And could that turn into an admiration of your still more beautiful mind?”
Eleanor looked away, knowing the answer, and she heard Philip sigh.
“It is not my concern, no matter how unhappy I think you shall be,” he finally said. “The conduct upon General Tilney’s part has always—” He cleared his throat. “Well, I know what you suffer, but do not expect me to admire you for settling for a man like Sir Charles Sudbury.”
She walked away, shaking her head, but before she had taken two steps, Philip said, “Wait.” He touched her arm and she stayed. “What if you stand up to him?” he whispered.
“To Sir Charles? I can assert myself with him when I must, I am sure.”
“No, stand up to your father.” Philip still held a gentle grip on her arm. “Tell him you do not want to marry with attention only to money, and tell him that you deserve to be treated with greater respect. How could that be any worse than what you suffer now?”
“It is so easy for you to say such a thing.” She was furious that Philip so misunderstood her situation. “Nobody who has not been in the interior of a family can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.”
“You cannot honestly say that you believe a dependent woman must always do what she is told.”
“Philip, I have just hadallof my letters censored.” She shrugged off his arm with a glare. “You have not an idea of what is requisite in my situation. A young woman, completely dependent? Can a young woman shake off all that is unworthy in her father’s authority? You might expect a son to revolt, but who would countenance a dependent daughter to revolt against her father?”
She saw in his eyes that she had not moved Philip, and added, “How many people can manage a rich person in authority? A general who is accustomed to having his orders carried out? I suppose you would simply have me pack my trunk and leave in the middle of the night?”
“Yes!” he cried. “If it is as bad as you say, just leave, my dear Eleanor. Do not align yourself with such a man as Sir Charles. Go to Henry, to Frederick, to your mother’s friend Mrs Hughes, to your friend Miss Morland.”
“None of those people have the authority to shield me from my father.” She gave Philip an expressive look. “If I flee from my father and enter the house of any friend or relation to take refuge, my father would be in the right to enter and carry me away by force. And what would he then do to me?” A tremor passed through her. “I can receive or send no letters without his knowledge, and he leaves me little money to manage on my own. I would be trapped at Northanger, seeing no one, going nowhere, having no news.”
Philip threw up his hands. “But he has always controlled you! This incident with Miss Morland has altered you. You previously kept your patience with your father.”
“That is a compliment that brings me no pleasure.”
He blew out a breath. “If not forourpossible happiness, then speak up foryourself, for your own sake. Tell him what his treatment has driven you to do, that you would marry a man you do not even like. Perhaps you might move General Tilney and it will make your life more bearable.”
Eleanor shook her head. “Or I might suffer even more. Again, it is not easy for a woman to burst forth at once and oppose a man’s authority, let alone a man such as him.” She narrowed her eyes and said something she had sworn not to say. “If it is so easy, why do you not approach the general?”
He drew back. “Me?”
