For more information on this fanfic project and why I outsourced the drafting of it to Claude, see the previous post in the “Sense and Sensibility and Placage” category. Claude completed this scene in five and a fraction drafts. It started out with a confused approach to the will, which draft two corrected after I set it on the right path. It also had John Dashwood offering a cottage (supposed to be the property of Mrs. Jennings) to his half-sisters. I got it to correct that and the em-dashes in draft three. The last fractional draft was to address a particular bit where John Dashwood talks around how much money he’s going to give his stepmother/half-sisters per annum. I sympathized with Claude’s desire not to specify an amount in currency, but I thought there was a better way of not committing ourselves, and asked for a redraft. Then I realized that Celeste Dashwood, the heroines’ mother really needed to be present and at least somewhat active for this scene. And then I caught a couple of other minor things I wanted to correct, so then came draft five. Eleonore’s last line in the scene is my rewording of Claude, and minor edits by me were also made for continuity with later scenes.

The Promise and Its Breaking

The will, when the lawyer read it, was a document that said a great deal about Henry Dashwood’s character and rather less than it ought to have about his intentions. He had provided for Céleste and her daughters, yes, but in the way of a man who trusted his own judgment of his son’s honor more than he trusted the law’s ability to enforce it, and who had perhaps also wished to spare the women he loved the indignity of being named and described and classified in legal language before a roomful of strangers. The result was a document of fond vagueness that John could not quite be accused of violating, because it had never been precise enough to violate.

Éléonore had understood this within thirty seconds of the lawyer beginning to read. She suspected her mother had understood it before that.

The lawyer removed himself to the hallway with the tact of a man who has delivered bad news often enough to know when to absent himself from its consequences. John sat across from Éléonore at the parlor table, the will spread between them. Céleste sat to Éléonore’s right, her hands folded in her lap, her back very straight. She had dressed carefully for this, in the restrained elegance she had always brought to occasions that required her to be beyond reproach, and she was watching John with an expression that Éléonore recognized as the one her mother wore when she was feeling a great deal and permitting herself to show very little of it. Outside, a cart was making its slow way down the street, its wheels loud on the banquette, and somewhere a woman was calling to someone in rapid Creole French that Éléonore could not quite make out through the glass.

Frances sat to John’s left, smoothing her glove along her wrist with the air of someone being enormously reasonable.

“You understand that I intend to honor what Father wished,” John said. He had the uncomfortable look of a man who had already had several conversations about this with his wife and lost all of them. “The question is simply one of what that means, practically speaking.”

“Henry,” said Céleste quietly, “was a man who kept his word. In twenty years, he never failed to keep his word to me.”

The temperature in the room shifted slightly. Frances’s smile did not waver, but her eyes moved to Céleste with an attention that was not quite respect and not quite its opposite.

“Your father was not a precise man,” Frances said, not unkindly. “One sees that in the document. He trusted to good feeling all around, which speaks well of him, of course. But good feeling must be balanced against good sense.”

“And good sense suggests?” Éléonore asked, drawing the conversation back before it could find an edge.

“We had thought, perhaps, an annual sum.” John named the figure, and Éléonore kept her expression carefully neutral. “Modest, but sufficient for reasonable needs. As for the house, it cannot be maintained at its current size and expense, and we had thought a smaller establishment might serve very well. Mrs. Jennings has mentioned that she has a cottage available in the Faubourg Marigny, and has offered it at a very reasonable rent. She was fond of your father, as you know. It is a perfectly respectable arrangement.”

Céleste drew a slow breath. It was a small sound, barely audible, but Éléonore heard it and understood what it cost her mother to make no other response.

“Your father would have wanted your mother to be comfortable,” Frances added, with the particular warmth of a woman who has already won and can afford to be gracious. “We want that too. But he left the terms to our discretion, and we must exercise it responsibly.”

“He left the terms to John’s discretion,” Céleste said, with a precision that was perfectly polite and left Frances nowhere comfortable to stand. “I do not believe he anticipated that the discretion would be exercised quite so — economically.”

“Maman,” Éléonore said, gently.

Céleste pressed her lips together and said nothing further, but her hands in her lap had tightened against each other, and Éléonore could see the effort the silence required.

Éléonore did not argue further. She had understood from the moment the lawyer began reading that argument was not the instrument available to her here. John had not broken a promise so much as he had allowed his wife to find the space between his father’s intentions and the law’s reach, and settled himself comfortably into it. There was nothing in the document to point to, no clause to hold up and say here, this is what you are betraying. There was only what her father had meant, and meaning, without the law to enforce it, was a currency Frances did not accept.

The annual sum John proposed would cover Mrs. Jennings’s rent, and little beyond it. They would not be destitute. They would simply have to be very, very careful, for a very long time, with no certainty of anything improving.

“We will need to make arrangements,” Éléonore said, rising.

John rose with her, relieved in the manner of men who have behaved badly and been let off without a scene. “Of course. Éléonore, I want you to know that Father would have understood the practicalities. He was a businessman. He knew that sentiment must yield to circumstance.”

“Yes,” said Éléonore. “I am sure he would have understood what your decision meant.”

Céleste rose without a word, without looking at either John or Frances, and walked to the door with the careful dignity of a woman who has decided that this room no longer deserves her presence. Éléonore followed, and did not look back either.