“You are a sensible girl, Eleanor, and would never marry without proper attention to money.”
“I have money of my own.” The idea had moved immediately from her mind to her lips, and she regretted it instantly. Under her father’s stern gaze, she had to make her words as mild as she could. “So that cannot be as much a concern for me as it would be for another lady who was not so lucky as to have money from both her father and her mother.”
General Tilney continued in giving her a long, cold look. “Your mother’s money,” he finally said, “is not yet settled, and mine is granted on the condition that you marry where I say that you may.” He took a drink from his glass, emptied it, and set it down forcefully. “Not that you would, I am certain, ever be so selfish or foolish as to marry against the wishes of your only living parent.”
He continued to stare at her, clearly expecting an answer. The threat that she might be deprived or neglected or further mistreated was very real, and so she calmly said, “No, sir.”
When dinner was over, she claimed to be weary and retired early to her own rooms. When she was alone, she sighed and looked at her mother’s portrait. For whatever reason, her father was dissatisfied with the painting, but she had thought it like. Her mother wore the pearls she had received on the occasion of her marriage, and although her dress and hair were fifteen years out of date, it still represented a lovely woman.
Eleanor felt her eyes well with tears as she looked at her mother’s pensive countenance.I miss you.
Her mother’s death still felt like a great affliction. She had no sister, and though Henry was affectionate, he was no longer here to help her bear their father. Eleanor could not have been more surprised at herself for not being able to accept Sir Charles, that she had essentially chosen to continue to be solitary and tyrannised here than submit to being the wife of such a man.
Her mother would have been always present, and her influence over her future could have been beyond her father’s. Her mother had always liked her Brampton cousins, and Eleanor could convince herself that, although her mother had been a wealthy woman, she might have been happy to see her daughter wed to a man with only five hundred a year so long as she had chosen a good-hearted man.
“Should I tell my father that I want to marry Philip?”
The mild, smiling face in the portrait had no reply, but Eleanor’s own heart knew the answer. She was too afraid to defy the general, and her mother—indeed no one—was here to support her if she tried.
* * *
It wasFriday the eleventh of May when Philip received a letter from Henry Tilney, and another day before he brought himself to open it. He could not let his sinking friendship with Eleanor affect his steady relationship with Henry, even if this letter announced Eleanor’s engagement.
However, Henry’s letter was full of talk of Miss Morland, who was a good-looking, earnest girl, and entirely guileless. It seemed he intended next week to return to Wiltshire to visit with his would-be future family.“She is so dearly sweet and artless that she would not survive one day in London.”Henry had a high opinion of his own wit, and Philip had often thought he would prefer a woman with an ignorant mind, someone he could mould. But in reading through the lines, Henry’s letter was full of devotion, and it corroborated everything that Eleanor had said: this Miss Morland was cheerful, affectionate, candid, and probably perfect for Henry.
There was not a word said about his break with the general, but Henry closed his letter with concern for Eleanor.
Have you had a letter from Eleanor this month? My dear sister’s last sounded nothing at all like herself, and I worry for her happiness at Northanger. She is now friendless there, you know, and she must feel disconsolate, although she would never admit to it. Her letter was guarded and far shorter than she typically sends to her favourite brother. It was almost as though my father was standing over her shoulder, oppressing her every word, and I say that not only because she said nothing of Miss Morland.
Philip knew why Eleanor could not write freely even to her own brother, but it was not his place to tell Henry that the general was restricting all of her correspondence. Henry would come to the conclusion quickly. Philip felt Henry thought a little too highly of himself, but he was an intelligent man.
Frederick, Henry, and Eleanor were all intelligent and handsome. But all the Tilney children were unhappy in their own way, even Frederick, who hated the army and still had to serve at the will of his father. Granted, Frederick would probably be an idle gadder about in London until he inherited, so it was in his best interest that he had some employment. But all of the Tilney children were oppressed and made unhappy by their father.
Even a flirtatious light dragoons cavalry captain is oppressed and nervous in his father’s presence.
As Philip replied to Henry, he realised that Henry had not mentioned Sir Charles following the family to Northanger or an upcoming marriage. It was forthcoming, he knew, but perhaps not until the end of the summer. She was making a foolish choice, and would be more unhappy with Sir Charles than with the general, but it was not Philip’s place to speak for Eleanor. Her own brothers did not even speak for her interests in defiance of the general.
She has no one to defend her. I might have been kinder to her before I left.
Philip was tempted to describe what manner of man the baronet was to force Henry to put an end to it, but that was not what Eleanor wanted. Besides, Henry had only stood up to the general for his own sake, and for the sake of this guileless girl Eleanor had befriended. Only people with fortune, influence, and great strength of mind could defy General Tilney. Henry, to Philip’s surprise, had had the courage to break from his father and hopefully marry where he wanted, and had just enough of his own money to do it.
Philip and Eleanor lacked the money, the power, and the courage.
He finished his letter hurriedly, saying little about his own plans for the summer or his mathematical work, eager to put a little distance between him and Eleanor, as though the brother was a reminder of his permanent separation with the sister. He could never ask Henry to put an end to Eleanor’s engagement to Sir Charles.
I did nothing to put an end to it, so I can hardly beg Henry to.
ChapterThirteen
The families who had gone to town for the winter had yet to return to Gloucestershire, and summer engagements would not arise for another month. Eleanor found life at Northanger dull, and the sameness of every day’s society and employments soon disgusted her even more with the place. Aside from answering her father’s querulous demands, she hardly had a reason to speak the near-week they had been home.
Had the Lady Frasers been in the country she might have at least had the diversion of a polite call, but there were no neighbours nearby and no Henry to talk with, and now no letters to enjoy. Eleanor had tried to write to Alice to ask if Catherine had written again since she left Herefordshire, but she could not phrase it in such a way that would escape her father’s notice. When General Tilney had read of “her absent friend,” he had thrown the letter away, saying that she must have been careless to make so many errors in her penmanship and she ought to write it again.
Her last letter to Henry was insipid and unimaginative. It was the only way that her father would put it in the post, and she was certain Henry must wonder what was wrong with her to write so few lines and to express nothing of note.
While they were at church this morning, Eleanor took notice of the monument to the memory of her mother, which immediately fronted the family pew. While her father maintained his elevated air, looking sternly around, she had perused the epitaph, in which every virtue was ascribed to her departed mother. She had to believe that if her mother had half of those virtues, she must have wanted her daughter to have some happiness. From there, it was not a great leap for her heart to hope that her mother would have supported her in marrying Philip.
My mother would have known Philip to have all the worth that could justify the warmest hopes of lasting happiness with me.
