Persuaded
Vignette 8: Mrs. Dashwood tries to persuade Meg out of her love, and Anne Wentworth won't allow it.
Friends, it’s ten days ‘til Christmas! The hope is real, and it’s coming.
The following story was inspired by one of you!
, who writes the Substacks A Writer’s Life for Me and From the Desk of Periwinkle Twist said she’d like to read a story about Elinor (from Sense and Sensibility) and Anne (from Persuasion), so here it is!Jane Austen’s birthday is December 16th — so, in her honor, here’s Vignette 8: “Persuaded.”
Each story can be enjoyed individually — but if you want to know the whole story, you can start from the beginning with Vignette 1: “Tailgating Mr. Darcy.” The previous story is Vignette 7: “Great News.”
Persuaded
Vignette 8
Elinor Dashwood-Ferrars accepted a claim ticket from the valet and walked ahead of her mother and two sisters into Canterbury Court, one of Atlanta’s luxury senior living communities. The Christmas lights over the door winked at her in a failed attempt to raise her Christmas spirit. The four Dashwood ladies had convened to preview this place for Mrs. Dashwood at what was supposed to be a stress-free Christmas service held for the residents — but thanks to Marianne, as usual, they were late. Adding hassle to hustle, Elinor’s husband Ward — an Episcopalian minister on the board of this institution — was leading the service that would begin in five minutes and had forgotten his notes, now in Elinor’s possession. At the front desk, she signed their names and accepted four visitor badges while her sisters continued an argument begun in the car with their mother.
Marianne was saying, “…but his sisters will be there! Meg is not going to be ‘spending the night with a man!’ She’s been invited — by his parents — to their annual Christmas gathering and will be sharing a room with his sisters! What is there to object to?”
Elinor gave Marianne the look that said lower your voice and mechanically put a lanyard over each of their heads as if they were children.
Mrs. Dashwood brushed Elinor’s hand away before her coiffure was disturbed and arranged her own visitor tag over her cashmere sweater set. “We are not well-acquainted with their family. Meg has met this boy twice —”
“Three times, Mom. We met at church and have been out twice since,” Meg said.
“— which is not long enough to know someone before taking the momentous step of meeting his family and spending the night —” she floundered, “— in his presence!”
“Mom!” Marianne and Meg groaned in unison as Elinor gathered them like sheep and herded them down the hallway, past the large reception room decorated for Christmas like the drawing room of someone’s ancestral home, past the dining room that overlooked the extensive gardens, down a second hallway to the second set of elevators on the way to the garden-level chapel.
Elinor attempted to remind them why they were there with comments like, “This dining room is pleasant — lots of light during the day from these windows.” And “Look at those gorgeous gardens, Mom. The residents get their own plots — you wouldn’t have to give up gardening.” And, “It’s not too long a walk for someone like you — you’re still in such good shape.” She ran out of things to say at the elevator and punched the call button.
Mrs. Dashwood was diverted from the argument and said, “How many times a week do you volunteer here, Elinor? Would I see you often?”
“Ward gives the homily for this evening chapel once a month, and I always come to help out. And I lead the weekly charcoal drawing classes on Wednesdays. We could have lunch together on those days.”
“I could come once a week, too, Mom!” Marianne said. “I noticed the Steinway grand in the main room back there — maybe they’d like a volunteer to play for the residents!”
Exempt from visiting her mother since she still attended college and was only home for Christmas break, Meg brought the conversation back to her proposed weekend away. “His parents rent a bunch of cabins at Callaway Gardens, and all ten siblings and their spouses and children come every year for this Christmas gathering! Everyone brings whomever they’re dating to introduce them to the family —”
“That is exactly my point,” interrupted Mrs. Dashwood, returning to the discussion with vigor. “It is too soon for him to introduce you to his family as if… as if…”
“As if your baby were grown up, Mom?” Marianne said.
Mrs. Dashwood was prevented from responding by the arrival of a family friend and her elderly father at the elevator door.
“Hi, y’all!” the woman said.
“Anne, hi!” Elinor said, relieved by the interruption. “And Mr. Elliot — I wondered if we would see you at the chapel service tonight. Mom is thinking about moving here, so we brought her to the Christmas hymn sing.” She gave the illuminated button another jab and said, “Ward is downstairs already and needs these notes. Have you settled into your new apartment yet, Mr. Elliot?”
Mr. Elliot dismissed the question with an airy wave of his liver-spotted hand. “I certainly don’t intend to settle here. This is a brief stay while my health recovers. I’ll be moving back to my home in Tuxedo Park soon.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Dashwood looked at Anne. “I didn’t think they had short-term stays here — you buy into this community, don’t you?”
Anne was nodding her head with a long-suffering expression that said, There’s no point in correcting him. She tapped the illuminated call button. “This elevator is so slow, you’re not even aware it’s moving. That’s if you ever get on it.”
The doors began to slide apart with majestic torpidity, as if they guarded the hereafter no longer bound by time. When a large enough space cleared, a wizened little man in exercise clothes shuffled out while Elinor checked her phone. The group parted to let him through, exchanging Merry Christmases with him, as Elinor held the elevator door for everyone — not that any danger existed of it closing precipitately. Inside, she pressed Garden level and mashed the closed door button.
The reverse procedure began as Elinor took a deep breath and wondered if this elevator existed for her personal sanctification. Mr. Elliot and Mrs. Dashwood chatted while the others discussed Meg’s new boyfriend.
“We met at church over Thanksgiving weekend!” Meg said. “He’s a senior at Georgia Tech and is going to be an astrophysicist! He’s waiting to hear back from several PhD programs. He has nine siblings and has invited me to his family’s Christmas retreat next weekend! Anne, it’s such a pleasure to be pursued by a man who knows what he wants and has purpose and drive. He’s not one of those guys whose parents arrange everything for him. He has multiple jobs to pay for college and is doing something with his life!”
The elevator had almost closed when a man’s voice from the hallway said, “Hold the door, please!”
Anne inserted her hand between the panels, and they slowly began to open again, eliciting an involuntary cry from Elinor. The widening space revealed a hint of an enormous flower arrangement, and the delivery man said “thank you” from behind the red and green extravaganza.
“Being a self-made man is one thing,” Mrs. Dashwood said, joining Meg and Anne’s conversation as they waited for the doors to open, “but I don’t know that I want you to be connected to a family that has so little…”
“Here we go!” Marianne said to Anne.
“So little to recommend them!” Mrs. Dashwood insisted.
“This is what I told you,” Marianne said. “The family isn’t good enough for Mom. They need to be rich enough to pay for the higher education of all ten children. And, frankly, having ten children is tacky. Also,” she began to whisper, “I think they have ancestors who weren’t from our zip code.”
The flower arrangement squeezed into a corner of the elevator where the man behind it said, “Thank you! Sorry to hold y’all up. This elevator takes forever, and I would have been out there all night.”
“No problem,” Anne said. “That’s a gorgeous arrangement! Where are you going with it?”
“It’s for the lobby downstairs. They’re putting one of these in every lobby this week.”
“Where’s it from? It’s really beautiful.”
“Boxwoods on East Andrews.”
“That’s the store that his brother owns!” Meg exclaimed in delight.
The flower arrangement whipped aside, narrowly missing Mr. Elliot’s eye, and revealed a young man’s astonished face topped by a mass of black curls. He’d heard the joy in Meg’s voice and smiled like he’d won a national election. The air electrified as the two young people stood two-and-a-half feet apart, fighting the magnetism generated by the presence of the beloved. Everyone in the elevator car fell silent watching this eloquent display of adoration.
Mrs. Dashwood looked back and forth between them and said, “Aren’t you going to introduce me, Meg?”
Recovering first, the man said, “Mrs. Dashwood, forgive me. I’m Zachary Morland. I believe my sister Catherine Tilney is a friend of your elder daughters’ — Elinor and Marianne, right?” he asked, smiling at the women. “I’m glad for this chance to meet you and ask personally if you would allow Meg to join my family for our annual Christmas retreat next weekend. We have a whole cabin for the girls, so she’ll be well taken care of.”
Mrs. Dashwood blinked several times, bowled over by his confidence, and murmured that she would have to think about that.
“Of course! I’ll keep a spot in my sisters’ cabin reserved for her, and I’ll check back with you later this week.”
The doors began to open on the garden level floor, which surprised everyone since no one had felt the car move. To cover the possible awkwardness of watching the children stare at each other again while trapped by the glacial parting of the doors, Anne said, “I know Catherine, too! We haven’t run into each other in a while, but I follow her on Instagram. Please say hello to her for me. I’m Anne Wentworth, and this is my father Walter Elliot.”
The doors clunked into place, and Elinor said, “It’s nice to meet you, Zach,” before speeding down the hall to the chapel where her husband had just begun the opening prayer. Marianne hooked her mother’s arm, determined to rush her away from Meg and Zach — but Mrs. Dashwood would not dash.
She stepped out of the elevator and said, “Meg, we’re late for the Christmas chapel. Come with me, please.”
Meg appeared unable to overcome the gravitational pull of Zach’s presence. They walked out of the elevator together, and he said to her with a gentle smile, “I’ll see you soon.” To Mrs. Dashwood, he said, “I look forward to seeing you again, ma’am. You have a beautiful family,” with a smile at Marianne. And to Anne Wentworth — “Anne, I’ll let Catherine know you said hello. It was nice to meet you, Mr. Elliot.” And with a parting smile for Meg, he carried the towering arrangement to the garden lobby.
The group stood in silence for a moment until he was out of earshot — then Meg said, “Isn’t he wonderful, Mom? I want you to like him. You will see how incredible he is.”
Mrs. Dashwood sputtered in confusion and appealed to Anne for help. “You understand, Anne. You come from the same background — how would your father have felt if you had…” Mrs. Dashwood trailed off as she remembered that Anne had married a man against her father’s wishes — someone from the nouveau riche whose money (and family’s manners) came from trucking, she recalled — or was it shipping? Mrs. Dashwood glanced at Mr. Elliot, but he seemed sublimely unaware of the conversation, waiting patiently for the ladies to proceed. The melody of O Come, O Come Emmanuel wafted down the hall.
“Mrs. Dashwood…” Anne said, pausing. “In my experience — which I’m sure you recall — my family persuaded me to reject Frederick because of his family background — and I mourned my choice for 8 years. Until — by an act of God — I was given a second chance to say yes!” Anne took a breath, considering her words. “Unlike I was at her age, Meg knows her own mind and is not a persuadable person,” she said, eyeing Meg’s set jaw and determined expression. She smiled with sympathy at Mrs. Dashwood. “You love your daughters so much and have reared them to make good decisions. If that young man she met at church is the one she’s set her heart on — I’d say you’ve done a great job!”
Mrs. Dashwood adjusted her pearls and twisted her rings as the compliments worked on her.
Anne saw the signs of weakening and added, “The best thing about this weekend away with his family is that she will either fit right in or never want to see him again. If you’re convinced he’s not right for her, then letting her go could work in your favor.”
At that, Mrs. Dashwood stopped fussing with her jewelry and looked at Meg, whose face radiated hope. She reached toward her daughter and tucked an errant curl behind Meg’s ear.
“Mom?” Meg said.
Mrs. Dashwood sighed and said, “Alright. You can go.”
“Thank you thank you thank you, Mom!!” Meg said in a muted scream that accounted for the Christmas service down the hall. She threw her arms around her mother’s neck. “I have to go tell him. He must still be here.”
“You are coming with me into this service now. You can tell him later.”
“Oh, Mom!”
“Now, Meg. Don’t push me.”
“Alright,” Meg said and pulled herself together.
Marianne looked at Anne with awe at what her friend had accomplished and steered her mother toward the chapel.
As Mrs. Dashwood walked away, Meg hugged Anne and said, “You have made me the happiest girl in the world, and I’m naming my first child after you.”
Anne laughed and took her father’s arm, leading him toward the music. As they snuck into the chapel festooned with garlands and wreaths and twinkling with lights, Mr. Elliot demonstrated some level of attention to the conversation, if not awareness of his surroundings, when he said loudly, “I named my first child Elizabeth after the Queen of England.”
Elinor glared at Anne and Meg as they giggled all the way to their seats.
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Find Jane Austen’s characters in her books:
Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor, Marianne, and Meg Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility
Morland family in Northanger Abbey (Zach is an invented name for one of James and Catherine Morland’s many younger siblings.)
Anne Elliot (Wentworth) and Walter Elliot in Persuasion
Mothers and daughters! ha. This is such a fun world you created. My first thought is...oh no, has Anne just created a "Lydia in Brighton" situation here? Time will tell! Having Anne and Meg become friends was such a creative pairing. I wouldn't have thought of that!
What a wonderfully charming story! The family tensions of children growing up and parents letting go are delightfully encapsulated.