“Eleanor!”
She started and cried out in surprise at hearing her father call for her. With a feeling of terror, she fixed her eyes on the door and cried out, “I am here.”
Her father entered and, without a single glance around the apartment, said, “I have been wanting you to answer this note. Why are you in these rooms?”
“I was remembering my mother,” she said, with a look at the jewellery box on the bed.
Her father gave them a quick look. “She received those pearls for our wedding. She was proud of them, and of her fortune too.”
“She wore them in her portrait,” Eleanor said fondly.
“What portrait? Oh, the one you took for your room. I did not care for it. Something in her expression and the nose was not like her.”
Eleanor shrugged, thinking that the portrait was far better than having nothing.
“This note from your mother’s friend Mrs Hughes must be answered,” he went on, handing it to her, “and as I am leaving tomorrow, I want to review your reply.”
She took the letter, and her heart beat quick, but her courage could not fail her now. The general turned to leave, but she asked for him to wait.
“I, I know that the subject of my marrying has lately been on your mind, and you intend to, to consider gentlemen you think suitable, to have Mrs Hughes take me to town this winter to meet them... but the matter has been on my mind for some time.”
Eleanor took a breath while her father’s face showed impatience. One had to speak quickly and succinctly with the general. One could not falter or lose their thoughts because he would simply walk away.
“Sir, I think that Mr Brampton would make me a suitable husband. He is independent, well-connected, and I am fond of him. I have always been fond of him, and while he would never act with impropriety”—she dissembled here—“I know that he admires me.”
General Tilney’s expression did not change aside from a narrowing of the eyes. “Mr Brampton is a respectable man,” he said stiffly, “but he has no rank or wealth.”
She had expected this. “He has an income of five hundred a year.”
“Five hundred a year!” he repeated in an angry tone. “Are all of my children to throw themselves away?” he muttered.
She could not allow her father to be distracted by his disapproval over Henry’s choice. “Mr Brampton is steady and sensible. He has noble integrity. He does not exceed his income nor—”
“I would hope not, for all his interest in mathematics,” the general interrupted. “He ought to at least be able to not exceed the very little money his spendthrift father left him.”
Perhaps she ought to bring attention to his associations to people of rank. “Mr Brampton’s cousin is a viscount. He has noble connexions, and with our combined fortunes we could live quite comfortably.”
“Miss Tilney married to Mr Brampton, lodging in a rented house in his cousin’s estate village!” There was fury in the general’s eyes, but Eleanor kept her composure. “A poor man with no profession, barely able to live; a mere Mr Brampton, with no title, of all men in the world, to be the chosen husband of Miss Tilney! I would rather you be a spinster in one of your brothers’ houses than marry beneath you.”
Tears could not relieve the distress she felt in her heart, so Eleanor refused to let them fall. She had not been able to defend Catherine before, let alone herself, but she could not let her father speak so meanly about Philip. This was only the first mention of her hopes, after all. It might be some time before her father could be worked on.
“He is not far beneath me, and certainly not so in rank. He is my second cousin, after all, and is not without consequence. He is incredibly intelligent, an amiable man. He is often shy amongst those he does not know well, but you might come to know him a little better, as well as I—”
“That is not a connexion you or I need to improve. Mr Brampton lives on a few hundred a year in a house that would make Woodston look like a mansion. Barely a gentleman!”
“He was not well-provided for by his father, but he is still a—”
“Do not interrupt me,” General Tilney cried, taking a step nearer and pointing. “Mr Brampton has nothing to live on, and you shall receive no money from me if you disoblige me. You cannot have entertained the notion seriously; you are blinded by a slight familial connexion and having not been much in the world. But to be cautious, I will tell you that you will not be noticed by me, your family, or friends if you wilfully act against me and marry such a man.”
She was used to this harshness from her father. His unkindness and this restless feeling of doom and a racing heart were no reason to give up. “I have no wish to disoblige you, but I say again that a man of Mr Brampton’s situation is not beneath me, and my fortune, in addition to his own, could be a fine competence.”
“Am I to be defied in my own house by an intemperate daughter who has lost all the sense that she was born with?”
The general’s face was flushed with rage, and she felt herself colour in mortification. She had always prided herself on her sense, on her rationality, on her calmness of temper.
“I do not aim to defy or anger you,” she pleaded. “I only, Papa, I only want you to consider my happiness as much as you consider my maintenance and my place in the world. Mr Brampton is a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, and with my fortune we could live more than comfortably, respectably—”
“I would give you nothing if you married Mr Brampton, or any man similarly situated.” That had always been her fear, but to hear it said aloud drove the air from her lungs. “And if you attempted to pursue such an alliance, I would cast you out, and damn every friend who might help you.”
