‘Well,’ Mary said, ‘that’s not happening now! Look at Ellie!’

Elinor had stepped smartly back out of Lucy’s embrace, and taken Edward’s hand to help him do the same. Lucy and Robert exchanged glances and took another step forward. Elinor held up a hand.

‘No!’ she said warningly.

Sir John shook his wife’s arm. ‘Good girl,’ he said approvingly. ‘Good for Elinor.’

There was a small stir in another group across the lawn, and from it emerged Mrs Ferrars, diminutive and upright in a linen coat dress, her handbag over her arm. She marched determinedly across the grass until she was standing beside Elinor.

‘It might be’, she said to Elinor in carrying tones, ‘how you go on in your family. But it’s not the case in ours. Family is family. Blood is thicker than water. This party is, I believe, to celebrate your engagement to my son. It was at your instigation that my younger son and his wife were invited. So I think it hardly behoves you not to welcome them when they do come, do you?’

There was an appalled silence. Edward and Elinor stared at his mother, mute with surprise. And then Lucy Ferrars, tearing off her sunglasses and uttering a theatrical sob, tottered forward and put her arms round her new mother-in-law instead. ‘Oh, thank you!’ she said tremulously. ‘Thank you, thank you.’

The sun was setting. From the window of the room that would be their future sitting room, Edward and Elinor watched the shadow of the house inch its way over the grass to where the trees began, on the edge of the park. Elinor said, ‘It makes me think of Norland.’

He put an arm round her. He said, ‘If it wasn’t for Norland …’

‘I know.’

He kissed the side of her head. He said, ‘We pulled it off today, you know.’

‘Even your mother’s little moment?’

‘Even that. Lucy won’t get very far. My mother will do almost anything for Robert, but she won’t let anyone else have first call on him. It might have looked like a little triumph for Lucy today, but it won’t last. Mother has a hair-trigger response to exploitation.’

‘And Fanny—’

Edward laughed. ‘Fanny won’t forgive Lucy.’

‘She was quite nice to me today.’

He kissed her again. He said, ‘No one can resist being nice to you. In the end.’

Elinor leaned against him. She said, ‘D’you think Ma means it, about moving into Exeter?’

Edward said, ‘At least she’s got the good sense not to try and move here.’

‘It would be better for Mags, in Exeter,’ Elinor said. ‘Barton Cottage will be unbearable for Mags if I’m not there, and Marianne’s in Bristol much of the time. And if Ma actually gets this little teaching job she’s after—’

‘Hey,’ Edward said suddenly, ‘look at that!’

Along the edge of the trees, in and out of the dappled sunlight, came a couple walking together, her long skirt catching picturesquely on the clumps of tall grasses as she passed. Elinor bent forward to see better. She said, ‘They’re not holding hands.’

‘No. But they look pretty comfortable together.’

‘She’s holding flowers instead. She’s always done that. When we were little, we had to keep stopping on walks so she could pick something, and then she’d just leave them somewhere, on the doorstep or the table or in her gumboot, and they’d die.’

Edward said softly, ‘They actually look pretty happy, don’t you think?’

Elinor smiled.

‘Nine months ago she said he was old and boring and wore scarves to protect his throat in winter.’

‘What would she say now, d’you suppose?’

Elinor glanced up at him. She laughed. She said, ‘I think she’d say that she was mistaken!’

Edward looked out across the lawn again. He said, ‘What d’you reckon his chances are?’

Elinor turned to face him, so that she could put her arms around him and lay her cheek against his chest.

‘I reckon’, she said, her voice faintly muffled, ‘that his chances are pretty good. Marianne can’t do anything by halves, and certainly not loving.’

‘All or nothing.’

‘Yes.’

Edward put his own arms around her and laid his cheek on the top of her head. ‘All,’ he said contentedly. ‘All. I’ll settle for that.’