Ladies in Waiting: Jane Austen’s Unsung Characters

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Excerpt from Eloisa’s story, Sense, Sensibility, and Snapdragons

Chapter One

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, 1804.

(Or is it memoirs? 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 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 hunters (requiring stables, 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 just have 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 be on 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, hearts should 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 silly and romantic. I think they also secretly consider me selfish and self-indulgent 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 gentleman and ladies, so I’m certain to witness Cupid’s flaming arrows, even if I don’t fall in love myself. Marianne 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 ambition, but cynical in spirit). Or perhaps I’m not attracting the right men. I wish I was 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 nymph-like 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 stamp 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 together with the thousand pounds left by my uncle makes me an heiress. I plan to model my novel on Mrs. Frances Burney’s Cecilia: 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 tomato fame, 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, he doesn’t really want 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, (entirely his fault). 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. 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 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 Francis Burney’s husband, but I was poisonously jealous, all the same. More than anything—perhaps even love—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 the material she needs. I’ve noticed any number of authors steal from Miss Austen, for example. How many Darcys can be insolently strolling around ball rooms, scowling because the ladies aren’t pretty enough for him? (As a fervent reader: the answer is lots.)

That reminds me that a novelist can’t merely drop people into a room and set them sneering at each other. Miss Austen, for example, uses rain to nearly kill off her heroines, but I can do better. My heroine might climb a (craggy) cliff with a dagger clenched in her teeth. And not get a cold, even though the rocks are crusted with snow.

Anyway, this morning Squibby dragged me along to watch the shooting party, so here’s a description of Delaford woods—or “hanger,” as the Colonel has it. (An aside: you’d think he would be transformed by two years of unrelenting culture on the Continent, but other than a truly exquisite coat, he seems unchanged.)

We came through the yew arbor, its tree trunks were dark and wreathed with fog. A bird (rook? wood pigeon?) was singing, until the retrievers started barking as loudly as pie-sellers at the county fair. At least fifty men beat the underbrush to make pheasants fly up and be shot. The hills around were grey and lonely. Perhaps grey and naked.

Novels are all about detail, so I must do better. Words I should use: bold, uncouth, rugged, hazy, promentary. Or is it “promontory”? Neither looks right.

Another try: Clouds cast lowering shadows over pheasants that cowered in the shrubbery before flinging themselves at the sky in a frantic attempt to avoid being shot in cold blood.

I expect I’ll do better when describing drawing rooms, because dead pigeons lying in a row are uninspiring. I was disturbed by the way they had been set down with their thin necks all crooked to the right, especially after Squibby remarked they reminded him of opera dancers in Paris (a stinging reminder of his foreign experiences). Apparently those dancers stand in a line, balancing on one leg and kicking the other over their head.

Another detail: the revolting smell of blood mingled with gun oil. The beaters threw their oily rags onto the wagon, right on top of bleeding pheasants.

That is not a romantic detail; I must aim at more flowery descriptions.

In the interests of accurate detail, here are the gowns by which I intend to entrance my suitors:

My new tea gown is pale thrush egg blue. (I wonder if thrushes were making all that noise in the woods?). It is caught up under my breasts and drapes over my slippers. The modiste wanted to hem it above my ankles but I refused, since my skirts must disguise my feet. I have practiced tucking them back that that only the tips peek out from my gown.

I’ll describe more gowns later, as I must go down to tea. I’ve been hearing carriages arrive all morning, rumbling over the gravel with a sound like a hail storm. (cliché: must do better).

end of excerpt