Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility
Sense and Sensibility
Jane Austen
Chapter 1
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The old gentleman died: his will was read, and like almost every
other will, gave as much disappointment as pleasure. He was neither so
unjust, nor so ungrateful, as to leave his estate from his nephew;—but he
left it to him on such terms as destroyed half the value of the bequest. Mr.
Dashwood had wished for it more for the sake of his wife and daughters
than for himself or his son;—but to his son, and his son’s son, a child
of four years old, it was secured, in such a way, as to leave to himself
no power of providing for those who were most dear to him, and who
most needed a provision by any charge on the estate, or by any sale of
its valuable woods. The whole was tied up for the benefit of this child,
who, in occasional visits with his father and mother at Norland, had so
far gained on the affections of his uncle, by such attractions as are by no
means unusual in children of two or three years old; an imperfect artic-
ulation, an earnest desire of having his own way, many cunning tricks,
and a great deal of noise, as to outweigh all the value of all the attention
which, for years, he had received from his niece and her daughters. He
meant not to be unkind, however, and, as a mark of his affection for the
three girls, he left them a thousand pounds a-piece.
Mr. Dashwood’s disappointment was, at first, severe; but his temper
was cheerful and sanguine; and he might reasonably hope to live many
years, and by living economically, lay by a considerable sum from the
produce of an estate already large, and capable of almost immediate
improvement. But the fortune, which had been so tardy in coming, was
his only one twelvemonth. He survived his uncle no longer; and ten
thousand pounds, including the late legacies, was all that remained for
his widow and daughters.
His son was sent for as soon as his danger was known, and to him
Mr. Dashwood recommended, with all the strength and urgency which
illness could command, the interest of his mother-in-law and sisters.
Mr. John Dashwood had not the strong feelings of the rest of the
family; but he was affected by a recommendation of such a nature at
such a time, and he promised to do every thing in his power to make
them comfortable. His father was rendered easy by such an assurance,
and Mr. John Dashwood had then leisure to consider how much there
might prudently be in his power to do for them.
He was not an ill-disposed young man, unless to be rather cold
hearted and rather selfish is to be ill-disposed: but he was, in general,
well respected; for he conducted himself with propriety in the discharge
of his ordinary duties. Had he married a more amiable woman, he might
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have been made still more respectable than he was:—he might even have
been made amiable himself; for he was very young when he married, and
very fond of his wife. But Mrs. John Dashwood was a strong caricature
of himself;—more narrow-minded and selfish.
When he gave his promise to his father, he meditated within himself
to increase the fortunes of his sisters by the present of a thousand pounds
a-piece. He then really thought himself equal to it. The prospect of four
thousand a-year, in addition to his present income, besides the remain-
ing half of his own mother’s fortune, warmed his heart, and made him
feel capable of generosity.—“Yes, he would give them three thousand
pounds: it would be liberal and handsome! It would be enough to make
them completely easy. Three thousand pounds! he could spare so consid-
erable a sum with little inconvenience.”—He thought of it all day long,
and for many days successively, and he did not repent.
No sooner was his father’s funeral over, than Mrs. John Dashwood,
without sending any notice of her intention to her mother-in-law, arrived
with her child and their attendants. No one could dispute her right to
come; the house was her husband’s from the moment of his father’s de-
cease; but the indelicacy of her conduct was so much the greater, and
to a woman in Mrs. Dashwood’s situation, with only common feelings,
must have been highly unpleasing;—but in her mind there was a sense
of honor so keen, a generosity so romantic, that any offence of the kind,
by whomsoever given or received, was to her a source of immoveable
disgust. Mrs. John Dashwood had never been a favourite with any of
her husband’s family; but she had had no opportunity, till the present, of
shewing them with how little attention to the comfort of other people
she could act when occasion required it.
So acutely did Mrs. Dashwood feel this ungracious behaviour, and so
earnestly did she despise her daughter-in-law for it, that, on the arrival of
the latter, she would have quitted the house for ever, had not the entreaty
of her eldest girl induced her first to reflect on the propriety of going, and
her own tender love for all her three children determined her afterwards
to stay, and for their sakes avoid a breach with their brother.
Elinor, this eldest daughter, whose advice was so effectual, possessed
a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgment, which qualified
her, though only nineteen, to be the counsellor of her mother, and en-
abled her frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that
eagerness of mind in Mrs. Dashwood which must generally have led to
imprudence. She had an excellent heart;—her disposition was affection-
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ate, and her feelings were strong; but she knew how to govern them: it
was a knowledge which her mother had yet to learn; and which one of
her sisters had resolved never to be taught.
Marianne’s abilities were, in many respects, quite equal to Elinor’s.
She was sensible and clever; but eager in everything: her sorrows, her
joys, could have no moderation. She was generous, amiable, interesting:
she was everything but prudent. The resemblance between her and her
mother was strikingly great.
Elinor saw, with concern, the excess of her sister’s sensibility; but
by Mrs. Dashwood it was valued and cherished. They encouraged each
other now in the violence of their affliction. The agony of grief which
overpowered them at first, was voluntarily renewed, was sought for, was
created again and again. They gave themselves up wholly to their sorrow,
seeking increase of wretchedness in every reflection that could afford it,
and resolved against ever admitting consolation in future. Elinor, too,
was deeply afflicted; but still she could struggle, she could exert herself.
She could consult with her brother, could receive her sister-in-law on her
arrival, and treat her with proper attention; and could strive to rouse her
mother to similar exertion, and encourage her to similar forbearance.
Margaret, the other sister, was a good-humored, well-disposed girl;
but as she had already imbibed a good deal of Marianne’s romance, with-
out having much of her sense, she did not, at thirteen, bid fair to equal
her sisters at a more advanced period of life.
Chapter 2
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“Perhaps, then, it would be better for all parties, if the sum were
diminished one half.—Five hundred pounds would be a prodigious in-
crease to their fortunes!”
“Oh! beyond anything great! What brother on earth would do half
so much for his sisters, even if really his sisters! And as it is—only half
blood!—But you have such a generous spirit!”
“I would not wish to do any thing mean,” he replied. “One had
rather, on such occasions, do too much than too little. No one, at least,
can think I have not done enough for them: even themselves, they can
hardly expect more.”
“There is no knowing what they may expect,” said the lady, “but
we are not to think of their expectations: the question is, what you can
afford to do.”
“Certainly—and I think I may afford to give them five hundred
pounds a-piece. As it is, without any addition of mine, they will each
have about three thousand pounds on their mother’s death—a very com-
fortable fortune for any young woman.”
“To be sure it is; and, indeed, it strikes me that they can want no
addition at all. They will have ten thousand pounds divided amongst
them. If they marry, they will be sure of doing well, and if they do
not, they may all live very comfortably together on the interest of ten
thousand pounds.”
“That is very true, and, therefore, I do not know whether, upon the
whole, it would not be more advisable to do something for their mother
while she lives, rather than for them—something of the annuity kind I
mean.—My sisters would feel the good effects of it as well as herself. A
hundred a year would make them all perfectly comfortable.”
His wife hesitated a little, however, in giving her consent to this plan.
“To be sure,” said she, “it is better than parting with fifteen hundred
pounds at once. But, then, if Mrs. Dashwood should live fifteen years
we shall be completely taken in.”
“Fifteen years! my dear Fanny; her life cannot be worth half that
purchase.”
“Certainly not; but if you observe, people always live for ever when
there is an annuity to be paid them; and she is very stout and healthy,
and hardly forty. An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over
and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it. You are not aware
of what you are doing. I have known a great deal of the trouble of an-
nuities; for my mother was clogged with the payment of three to old
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besides the thousand pounds belonging to each of the girls, which brings
them in fifty pounds a year a-piece, and, of course, they will pay their
mother for their board out of it. Altogether, they will have five hundred
a-year amongst them, and what on earth can four women want for more
than that?—They will live so cheap! Their housekeeping will be nothing
at all. They will have no carriage, no horses, and hardly any servants;
they will keep no company, and can have no expenses of any kind! Only
conceive how comfortable they will be! Five hundred a year! I am sure
I cannot imagine how they will spend half of it; and as to your giving
them more, it is quite absurd to think of it. They will be much more able
to give you something.”
“Upon my word,” said Mr. Dashwood, “I believe you are perfectly
right. My father certainly could mean nothing more by his request to
me than what you say. I clearly understand it now, and I will strictly
fulfil my engagement by such acts of assistance and kindness to them as
you have described. When my mother removes into another house my
services shall be readily given to accommodate her as far as I can. Some
little present of furniture too may be acceptable then.”
“Certainly,” returned Mrs. John Dashwood. “But, however, one
thing must be considered. When your father and mother moved to Nor-
land, though the furniture of Stanhill was sold, all the china, plate, and
linen was saved, and is now left to your mother. Her house will therefore
be almost completely fitted up as soon as she takes it.”
“That is a material consideration undoubtedly. A valuable legacy
indeed! And yet some of the plate would have been a very pleasant
addition to our own stock here.”
“Yes; and the set of breakfast china is twice as handsome as what
belongs to this house. A great deal too handsome, in my opinion, for
any place they can ever afford to live in. But, however, so it is. Your
father thought only of them. And I must say this: that you owe no
particular gratitude to him, nor attention to his wishes; for we very well
know that if he could, he would have left almost everything in the world
to them.”
This argument was irresistible. It gave to his intentions whatever
of decision was wanting before; and he finally resolved, that it would
be absolutely unnecessary, if not highly indecorous, to do more for the
widow and children of his father, than such kind of neighbourly acts as
his own wife pointed out.
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Chapter 3
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interest, for Edward Ferrars was the eldest son of a man who had died
very rich; and some might have repressed it from motives of prudence,
for, except a trifling sum, the whole of his fortune depended on the will
of his mother. But Mrs. Dashwood was alike uninfluenced by either
consideration. It was enough for her that he appeared to be amiable,
that he loved her daughter, and that Elinor returned the partiality. It was
contrary to every doctrine of her’s that difference of fortune should keep
any couple asunder who were attracted by resemblance of disposition;
and that Elinor’s merit should not be acknowledged by every one who
knew her, was to her comprehension impossible.
Edward Ferrars was not recommended to their good opinion by any
peculiar graces of person or address. He was not handsome, and his
manners required intimacy to make them pleasing. He was too diffident
to do justice to himself; but when his natural shyness was overcome, his
behaviour gave every indication of an open, affectionate heart. His un-
derstanding was good, and his education had given it solid improvement.
But he was neither fitted by abilities nor disposition to answer the wishes
of his mother and sister, who longed to see him distinguished—as—they
hardly knew what. They wanted him to make a fine figure in the world
in some manner or other. His mother wished to interest him in political
concerns, to get him into parliament, or to see him connected with some
of the great men of the day. Mrs. John Dashwood wished it likewise; but
in the mean while, till one of these superior blessings could be attained,
it would have quieted her ambition to see him driving a barouche. But
Edward had no turn for great men or barouches. All his wishes centered
in domestic comfort and the quiet of private life. Fortunately he had a
younger brother who was more promising.
Edward had been staying several weeks in the house before he en-
gaged much of Mrs. Dashwood’s attention; for she was, at that time, in
such affliction as rendered her careless of surrounding objects. She saw
only that he was quiet and unobtrusive, and she liked him for it. He did
not disturb the wretchedness of her mind by ill-timed conversation. She
was first called to observe and approve him farther, by a reflection which
Elinor chanced one day to make on the difference between him and his
sister. It was a contrast which recommended him most forcibly to her
mother.
“It is enough,” said she; “to say that he is unlike Fanny is enough. It
implies everything amiable. I love him already.”
“I think you will like him,” said Elinor, “when you know more of
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him.”
“Like him!” replied her mother with a smile. “I feel no sentiment of
approbation inferior to love.”
“You may esteem him.”
“I have never yet known what it was to separate esteem and love.”
Mrs. Dashwood now took pains to get acquainted with him. Her
manners were attaching, and soon banished his reserve. She speedily
comprehended all his merits; the persuasion of his regard for Elinor per-
haps assisted her penetration; but she really felt assured of his worth:
and even that quietness of manner, which militated against all her estab-
lished ideas of what a young man’s address ought to be, was no longer
uninteresting when she knew his heart to be warm and his temper affec-
tionate.
No sooner did she perceive any symptom of love in his behaviour
to Elinor, than she considered their serious attachment as certain, and
looked forward to their marriage as rapidly approaching.
“In a few months, my dear Marianne.” said she, “Elinor will, in all
probability be settled for life. We shall miss her; but she will be happy.”
“Oh! Mamma, how shall we do without her?”
“My love, it will be scarcely a separation. We shall live within a
few miles of each other, and shall meet every day of our lives. You will
gain a brother, a real, affectionate brother. I have the highest opinion
in the world of Edward’s heart. But you look grave, Marianne; do you
disapprove your sister’s choice?”
“Perhaps,” said Marianne, “I may consider it with some surprise.
Edward is very amiable, and I love him tenderly. But yet—he is not
the kind of young man—there is something wanting—his figure is not
striking; it has none of that grace which I should expect in the man who
could seriously attach my sister. His eyes want all that spirit, that fire,
which at once announce virtue and intelligence. And besides all this, I
am afraid, Mamma, he has no real taste. Music seems scarcely to attract
him, and though he admires Elinor’s drawings very much, it is not the
admiration of a person who can understand their worth. It is evident,
in spite of his frequent attention to her while she draws, that in fact he
knows nothing of the matter. He admires as a lover, not as a connoisseur.
To satisfy me, those characters must be united. I could not be happy
with a man whose taste did not in every point coincide with my own.
He must enter into all my feelings; the same books, the same music must
charm us both. Oh! mama, how spiritless, how tame was Edward’s
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manner in reading to us last night! I felt for my sister most severely. Yet
she bore it with so much composure, she seemed scarcely to notice it.
I could hardly keep my seat. To hear those beautiful lines which have
frequently almost driven me wild, pronounced with such impenetrable
calmness, such dreadful indifference!”—
“He would certainly have done more justice to simple and elegant
prose. I thought so at the time; but you would give him Cowper.”
“Nay, Mamma, if he is not to be animated by Cowper!—but we must
allow for difference of taste. Elinor has not my feelings, and therefore
she may overlook it, and be happy with him. But it would have broke
my heart, had I loved him, to hear him read with so little sensibility.
Mama, the more I know of the world, the more am I convinced that I
shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much! He must
have all Edward’s virtues, and his person and manners must ornament
his goodness with every possible charm.”
“Remember, my love, that you are not seventeen. It is yet too early
in life to despair of such a happiness. Why should you be less fortunate
than your mother? In one circumstance only, my Marianne, may your
destiny be different from her’s!”
Chapter 4
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if the situation pleased her. He earnestly pressed her, after giving the
particulars of the house and garden, to come with her daughters to Bar-
ton Park, the place of his own residence, from whence she might judge,
herself, whether Barton Cottage, for the houses were in the same parish,
could, by any alteration, be made comfortable to her. He seemed really
anxious to accommodate them and the whole of his letter was written
in so friendly a style as could not fail of giving pleasure to his cousin;
more especially at a moment when she was suffering under the cold and
unfeeling behaviour of her nearer connections. She needed no time for
deliberation or inquiry. Her resolution was formed as she read. The sit-
uation of Barton, in a county so far distant from Sussex as Devonshire,
which, but a few hours before, would have been a sufficient objection
to outweigh every possible advantage belonging to the place, was now
its first recommendation. To quit the neighbourhood of Norland was no
longer an evil; it was an object of desire; it was a blessing, in comparison
of the misery of continuing her daughter-in-law’s guest; and to remove
for ever from that beloved place would be less painful than to inhabit or
visit it while such a woman was its mistress. She instantly wrote Sir John
Middleton her acknowledgment of his kindness, and her acceptance of
his proposal; and then hastened to shew both letters to her daughters,
that she might be secure of their approbation before her answer were
sent.
Elinor had always thought it would be more prudent for them to
settle at some distance from Norland, than immediately amongst their
present acquaintance. On that head, therefore, it was not for her to
oppose her mother’s intention of removing into Devonshire. The house,
too, as described by Sir John, was on so simple a scale, and the rent
so uncommonly moderate, as to leave her no right of objection on ei-
ther point; and, therefore, though it was not a plan which brought any
charm to her fancy, though it was a removal from the vicinity of Nor-
land beyond her wishes, she made no attempt to dissuade her mother
from sending a letter of acquiescence.
Chapter 5
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no longer than till every thing were ready for her inhabiting it. They
heard her with surprise. Mrs. John Dashwood said nothing; but her hus-
band civilly hoped that she would not be settled far from Norland. She
had great satisfaction in replying that she was going into Devonshire.—
Edward turned hastily towards her, on hearing this, and, in a voice of
surprise and concern, which required no explanation to her, repeated,
“Devonshire! Are you, indeed, going there? So far from hence! And to
what part of it?” She explained the situation. It was within four miles
northward of Exeter.
“It is but a cottage,” she continued, “but I hope to see many of my
friends in it. A room or two can easily be added; and if my friends find
no difficulty in travelling so far to see me, I am sure I will find none in
accommodating them.”
She concluded with a very kind invitation to Mr. and Mrs. John Dash-
wood to visit her at Barton; and to Edward she gave one with still greater
affection. Though her late conversation with her daughter-in-law had
made her resolve on remaining at Norland no longer than was unavoid-
able, it had not produced the smallest effect on her in that point to which
it principally tended. To separate Edward and Elinor was as far from be-
ing her object as ever; and she wished to show Mrs. John Dashwood,
by this pointed invitation to her brother, how totally she disregarded her
disapprobation of the match.
Mr. John Dashwood told his mother again and again how exceed-
ingly sorry he was that she had taken a house at such a distance from
Norland as to prevent his being of any service to her in removing her
furniture. He really felt conscientiously vexed on the occasion; for the
very exertion to which he had limited the performance of his promise to
his father was by this arrangement rendered impracticable.—The furni-
ture was all sent around by water. It chiefly consisted of household linen,
plate, china, and books, with a handsome pianoforte of Marianne’s. Mrs.
John Dashwood saw the packages depart with a sigh: she could not help
feeling it hard that as Mrs. Dashwood’s income would be so trifling in
comparison with their own, she should have any handsome article of
furniture.
Mrs. Dashwood took the house for a twelvemonth; it was ready fur-
nished, and she might have immediate possession. No difficulty arose
on either side in the agreement; and she waited only for the disposal of
her effects at Norland, and to determine her future household, before
she set off for the west; and this, as she was exceedingly rapid in the per-
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well-known trees!—but you will continue the same.—No leaf will decay
because we are removed, nor any branch become motionless although
we can observe you no longer!—No; you will continue the same; uncon-
scious of the pleasure or the regret you occasion, and insensible of any
change in those who walk under your shade!—But who will remain to
enjoy you?”
Chapter 6
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of the others.
An opportunity was soon to be given to the Dashwoods of debating
on the rest of the children, as Sir John would not leave the house without
securing their promise of dining at the park the next day.
Chapter 7
B ARTON PARK was about half a mile from the cottage. The ladies
had passed near it in their way along the valley, but it was screened from
their view at home by the projection of a hill. The house was large and
handsome; and the Middletons lived in a style of equal hospitality and
elegance. The former was for Sir John’s gratification, the latter for that
of his lady. They were scarcely ever without some friends staying with
them in the house, and they kept more company of every kind than any
other family in the neighbourhood. It was necessary to the happiness
of both; for however dissimilar in temper and outward behaviour, they
strongly resembled each other in that total want of talent and taste which
confined their employments, unconnected with such as society produced,
within a very narrow compass. Sir John was a sportsman, Lady Middle-
ton a mother. He hunted and shot, and she humoured her children; and
these were their only resources. Lady Middleton had the advantage of
being able to spoil her children all the year round, while Sir John’s in-
dependent employments were in existence only half the time. Continual
engagements at home and abroad, however, supplied all the deficiencies
of nature and education; supported the good spirits of Sir John, and gave
exercise to the good breeding of his wife.
Lady Middleton piqued herself upon the elegance of her table, and
of all her domestic arrangements; and from this kind of vanity was her
greatest enjoyment in any of their parties. But Sir John’s satisfaction in
society was much more real; he delighted in collecting about him more
young people than his house would hold, and the noisier they were the
better was he pleased. He was a blessing to all the juvenile part of the
neighbourhood, for in summer he was for ever forming parties to eat
cold ham and chicken out of doors, and in winter his private balls were
numerous enough for any young lady who was not suffering under the
unsatiable appetite of fifteen.
The arrival of a new family in the country was always a matter of joy
to him, and in every point of view he was charmed with the inhabitants
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he had now procured for his cottage at Barton. The Miss Dashwoods
were young, pretty, and unaffected. It was enough to secure his good
opinion; for to be unaffected was all that a pretty girl could want to
make her mind as captivating as her person. The friendliness of his
disposition made him happy in accommodating those, whose situation
might be considered, in comparison with the past, as unfortunate. In
showing kindness to his cousins therefore he had the real satisfaction of a
good heart; and in settling a family of females only in his cottage, he had
all the satisfaction of a sportsman; for a sportsman, though he esteems
only those of his sex who are sportsmen likewise, is not often desirous of
encouraging their taste by admitting them to a residence within his own
manor.
Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters were met at the door of the house
by Sir John, who welcomed them to Barton Park with unaffected sincer-
ity; and as he attended them to the drawing room repeated to the young
ladies the concern which the same subject had drawn from him the day
before, at being unable to get any smart young men to meet them. They
would see, he said, only one gentleman there besides himself; a particu-
lar friend who was staying at the park, but who was neither very young
nor very gay. He hoped they would all excuse the smallness of the party,
and could assure them it should never happen so again. He had been
to several families that morning in hopes of procuring some addition to
their number, but it was moonlight and every body was full of engage-
ments. Luckily Lady Middleton’s mother had arrived at Barton within
the last hour, and as she was a very cheerful agreeable woman, he hoped
the young ladies would not find it so very dull as they might imagine.
The young ladies, as well as their mother, were perfectly satisfied with
having two entire strangers of the party, and wished for no more.
Mrs. Jennings, Lady Middleton’s mother, was a good-humoured,
merry, fat, elderly woman, who talked a great deal, seemed very happy,
and rather vulgar. She was full of jokes and laughter, and before dinner
was over had said many witty things on the subject of lovers and hus-
bands; hoped they had not left their hearts behind them in Sussex, and
pretended to see them blush whether they did or not. Marianne was
vexed at it for her sister’s sake, and turned her eyes towards Elinor to
see how she bore these attacks, with an earnestness which gave Elinor
far more pain than could arise from such common-place raillery as Mrs.
Jennings’s.
Colonel Brandon, the friend of Sir John, seemed no more adapted
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Chapter 8
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have long outlived every sensation of the kind. It is too ridiculous! When
is a man to be safe from such wit, if age and infirmity will not protect
him?”
“Infirmity!” said Elinor, “do you call Colonel Brandon infirm? I can
easily suppose that his age may appear much greater to you than to my
mother; but you can hardly deceive yourself as to his having the use of
his limbs!”
“Did not you hear him complain of the rheumatism? and is not that
the commonest infirmity of declining life?”
“My dearest child,” said her mother, laughing, “at this rate you must
be in continual terror of my decay; and it must seem to you a miracle
that my life has been extended to the advanced age of forty.”
“Mamma, you are not doing me justice. I know very well that
Colonel Brandon is not old enough to make his friends yet apprehen-
sive of losing him in the course of nature. He may live twenty years
longer. But thirty-five has nothing to do with matrimony.”
“Perhaps,” said Elinor, “thirty-five and seventeen had better not have
any thing to do with matrimony together. But if there should by any
chance happen to be a woman who is single at seven and twenty, I should
not think Colonel Brandon’s being thirty-five any objection to his marry-
ing her.”
“A woman of seven and twenty,” said Marianne, after pausing a
moment, “can never hope to feel or inspire affection again, and if her
home be uncomfortable, or her fortune small, I can suppose that she
might bring herself to submit to the offices of a nurse, for the sake of
the provision and security of a wife. In his marrying such a woman
therefore there would be nothing unsuitable. It would be a compact of
convenience, and the world would be satisfied. In my eyes it would be
no marriage at all, but that would be nothing. To me it would seem
only a commercial exchange, in which each wished to be benefited at the
expense of the other.”
“It would be impossible, I know,” replied Elinor, “to convince you
that a woman of seven and twenty could feel for a man of thirty-five
anything near enough to love, to make him a desirable companion to
her. But I must object to your dooming Colonel Brandon and his wife to
the constant confinement of a sick chamber, merely because he chanced
to complain yesterday (a very cold damp day) of a slight rheumatic feel
in one of his shoulders.”
“But he talked of flannel waistcoats,” said Marianne; “and with me
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Chapter 9
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which had given to Norland half its charms were engaged in again with
far greater enjoyment than Norland had been able to afford, since the
loss of their father. Sir John Middleton, who called on them every day
for the first fortnight, and who was not in the habit of seeing much oc-
cupation at home, could not conceal his amazement on finding them
always employed.
Their visitors, except those from Barton Park, were not many; for,
in spite of Sir John’s urgent entreaties that they would mix more in the
neighbourhood, and repeated assurances of his carriage being always at
their service, the independence of Mrs. Dashwood’s spirit overcame the
wish of society for her children; and she was resolute in declining to visit
any family beyond the distance of a walk. There were but few who could
be so classed; and it was not all of them that were attainable. About
a mile and a half from the cottage, along the narrow winding valley
of Allenham, which issued from that of Barton, as formerly described,
the girls had, in one of their earliest walks, discovered an ancient re-
spectable looking mansion which, by reminding them a little of Norland,
interested their imagination and made them wish to be better acquainted
with it. But they learnt, on enquiry, that its possessor, an elderly lady of
very good character, was unfortunately too infirm to mix with the world,
and never stirred from home.
The whole country about them abounded in beautiful walks. The
high downs which invited them from almost every window of the cottage
to seek the exquisite enjoyment of air on their summits, were a happy
alternative when the dirt of the valleys beneath shut up their superior
beauties; and towards one of these hills did Marianne and Margaret one
memorable morning direct their steps, attracted by the partial sunshine
of a showery sky, and unable longer to bear the confinement which the
settled rain of the two preceding days had occasioned. The weather was
not tempting enough to draw the two others from their pencil and their
book, in spite of Marianne’s declaration that the day would be lastingly
fair, and that every threatening cloud would be drawn off from their hills;
and the two girls set off together.
They gaily ascended the downs, rejoicing in their own penetration at
every glimpse of blue sky; and when they caught in their faces the ani-
mating gales of a high south-westerly wind, they pitied the fears which
had prevented their mother and Elinor from sharing such delightful sen-
sations.
“Is there a felicity in the world,” said Marianne, “superior to this?—
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JANE AUSTEN
29
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
home was at Allenham, from whence he hoped she would allow him
the honour of calling tomorrow to enquire after Miss Dashwood. The
honour was readily granted, and he then departed, to make himself still
more interesting, in the midst of a heavy rain.
His manly beauty and more than common gracefulness were in-
stantly the theme of general admiration, and the laugh which his gal-
lantry raised against Marianne received particular spirit from his exte-
rior attractions.—Marianne herself had seen less of his person that the
rest, for the confusion which crimsoned over her face, on his lifting her
up, had robbed her of the power of regarding him after their entering
the house. But she had seen enough of him to join in all the admiration
of the others, and with an energy which always adorned her praise. His
person and air were equal to what her fancy had ever drawn for the hero
of a favourite story; and in his carrying her into the house with so little
previous formality, there was a rapidity of thought which particularly rec-
ommended the action to her. Every circumstance belonging to him was
interesting. His name was good, his residence was in their favourite vil-
lage, and she soon found out that of all manly dresses a shooting-jacket
was the most becoming. Her imagination was busy, her reflections were
pleasant, and the pain of a sprained ankle was disregarded.
Sir John called on them as soon as the next interval of fair weather
that morning allowed him to get out of doors; and Marianne’s accident
being related to him, he was eagerly asked whether he knew any gentle-
man of the name of Willoughby at Allenham.
“Willoughby!” cried Sir John; “what, is he in the country? That is
good news however; I will ride over tomorrow, and ask him to dinner
on Thursday.”
“You know him then,” said Mrs. Dashwood.
“Know him! to be sure I do. Why, he is down here every year.”
“And what sort of a young man is he?”
“As good a kind of fellow as ever lived, I assure you. A very decent
shot, and there is not a bolder rider in England.”
“And is that all you can say for him?” cried Marianne, indignantly.
“But what are his manners on more intimate acquaintance? What his
pursuits, his talents, and genius?”
Sir John was rather puzzled.
“Upon my soul,” said he, “I do not know much about him as to all
that. But he is a pleasant, good humoured fellow, and has got the nicest
little black bitch of a pointer I ever saw. Was she out with him today?”
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JANE AUSTEN
31
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
Chapter 10
32
JANE AUSTEN
and she had neither shyness nor reserve in their discussion. They speedily
discovered that their enjoyment of dancing and music was mutual, and
that it arose from a general conformity of judgment in all that related
to either. Encouraged by this to a further examination of his opinions,
she proceeded to question him on the subject of books; her favourite au-
thors were brought forward and dwelt upon with so rapturous a delight,
that any young man of five and twenty must have been insensible indeed,
not to become an immediate convert to the excellence of such works,
however disregarded before. Their taste was strikingly alike. The same
books, the same passages were idolized by each—or if any difference ap-
peared, any objection arose, it lasted no longer than till the force of her
arguments and the brightness of her eyes could be displayed. He acqui-
esced in all her decisions, caught all her enthusiasm; and long before his
visit concluded, they conversed with the familiarity of a long-established
acquaintance.
“Well, Marianne,” said Elinor, as soon as he had left them, “for one
morning I think you have done pretty well. You have already ascertained
Mr. Willoughby’s opinion in almost every matter of importance. You
know what he thinks of Cowper and Scott; you are certain of his estimat-
ing their beauties as he ought, and you have received every assurance of
his admiring Pope no more than is proper. But how is your acquaintance
to be long supported, under such extraordinary despatch of every subject
for discourse? You will soon have exhausted each favourite topic. An-
other meeting will suffice to explain his sentiments on picturesque beauty,
and second marriages, and then you can have nothing farther to ask.”—
“Elinor,” cried Marianne, “is this fair? is this just? are my ideas so
scanty? But I see what you mean. I have been too much at my ease,
too happy, too frank. I have erred against every common-place notion
of decorum; I have been open and sincere where I ought to have been
reserved, spiritless, dull, and deceitful—had I talked only of the weather
and the roads, and had I spoken only once in ten minutes, this reproach
would have been spared.”
“My love,” said her mother, “you must not be offended with Elinor—
she was only in jest. I should scold her myself, if she were capable
of wishing to check the delight of your conversation with our new
friend.”—Marianne was softened in a moment.
Willoughby, on his side, gave every proof of his pleasure in their ac-
quaintance, which an evident wish of improving it could offer. He came
to them every day. To enquire after Marianne was at first his excuse;
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SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
but the encouragement of his reception, to which every day gave greater
kindness, made such an excuse unnecessary before it had ceased to be
possible, by Marianne’s perfect recovery. She was confined for some
days to the house; but never had any confinement been less irksome.
Willoughby was a young man of good abilities, quick imagination, lively
spirits, and open, affectionate manners. He was exactly formed to en-
gage Marianne’s heart, for with all this, he joined not only a captivating
person, but a natural ardour of mind which was now roused and in-
creased by the example of her own, and which recommended him to her
affection beyond every thing else.
His society became gradually her most exquisite enjoyment. They
read, they talked, they sang together; his musical talents were consider-
able; and he read with all the sensibility and spirit which Edward had
unfortunately wanted.
In Mrs. Dashwood’s estimation he was as faultless as in Marianne’s;
and Elinor saw nothing to censure in him but a propensity, in which
he strongly resembled and peculiarly delighted her sister, of saying too
much what he thought on every occasion, without attention to persons
or circumstances. In hastily forming and giving his opinion of other
people, in sacrificing general politeness to the enjoyment of undivided
attention where his heart was engaged, and in slighting too easily the
forms of worldly propriety, he displayed a want of caution which Elinor
could not approve, in spite of all that he and Marianne could say in its
support.
Marianne began now to perceive that the desperation which had
seized her at sixteen and a half, of ever seeing a man who could sat-
isfy her ideas of perfection, had been rash and unjustifiable. Willoughby
was all that her fancy had delineated in that unhappy hour and in every
brighter period, as capable of attaching her; and his behaviour declared
his wishes to be in that respect as earnest, as his abilities were strong.
Her mother too, in whose mind not one speculative thought of their
marriage had been raised, by his prospect of riches, was led before the
end of a week to hope and expect it; and secretly to congratulate herself
on having gained two such sons-in-law as Edward and Willoughby.
Colonel Brandon’s partiality for Marianne, which had so early been
discovered by his friends, now first became perceptible to Elinor, when
it ceased to be noticed by them. Their attention and wit were drawn
off to his more fortunate rival; and the raillery which the other had in-
curred before any partiality arose, was removed when his feelings began
34
JANE AUSTEN
really to call for the ridicule so justly annexed to sensibility. Elinor was
obliged, though unwillingly, to believe that the sentiments which Mrs.
Jennings had assigned him for her own satisfaction, were now actually
excited by her sister; and that however a general resemblance of disposi-
tion between the parties might forward the affection of Mr. Willoughby,
an equally striking opposition of character was no hindrance to the re-
gard of Colonel Brandon. She saw it with concern; for what could a
silent man of five and thirty hope, when opposed to a very lively one
of five and twenty? and as she could not even wish him successful, she
heartily wished him indifferent. She liked him—in spite of his gravity
and reserve, she beheld in him an object of interest. His manners, though
serious, were mild; and his reserve appeared rather the result of some op-
pression of spirits than of any natural gloominess of temper. Sir John
had dropped hints of past injuries and disappointments, which justified
her belief of his being an unfortunate man, and she regarded him with
respect and compassion.
Perhaps she pitied and esteemed him the more because he was
slighted by Willoughby and Marianne, who, prejudiced against him for
being neither lively nor young, seemed resolved to undervalue his merits.
“Brandon is just the kind of man,” said Willoughby one day, when
they were talking of him together, “whom every body speaks well of,
and nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody
remembers to talk to.”
“That is exactly what I think of him,” cried Marianne.
“Do not boast of it, however,” said Elinor, “for it is injustice in both
of you. He is highly esteemed by all the family at the park, and I never
see him myself without taking pains to converse with him.”
“That he is patronised by you,” replied Willoughby, “is certainly
in his favour; but as for the esteem of the others, it is a reproach in
itself. Who would submit to the indignity of being approved by such a
woman as Lady Middleton and Mrs. Jennings, that could command the
indifference of any body else?”
“But perhaps the abuse of such people as yourself and Marianne will
make amends for the regard of Lady Middleton and her mother. If their
praise is censure, your censure may be praise, for they are not more
undiscerning, than you are prejudiced and unjust.”
“In defence of your protege you can even be saucy.”
“My protege, as you call him, is a sensible man; and sense will always
have attractions for me. Yes, Marianne, even in a man between thirty
35
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
and forty. He has seen a great deal of the world; has been abroad, has
read, and has a thinking mind. I have found him capable of giving me
much information on various subjects; and he has always answered my
inquiries with readiness of good-breeding and good nature.”
“That is to say,” cried Marianne contemptuously, “he has told you,
that in the East Indies the climate is hot, and the mosquitoes are trouble-
some.”
“He would have told me so, I doubt not, had I made any such in-
quiries, but they happened to be points on which I had been previously
informed.”
“Perhaps,” said Willoughby, “his observations may have extended to
the existence of nabobs, gold mohrs, and palanquins.”
“I may venture to say that his observations have stretched much fur-
ther than your candour. But why should you dislike him?”
“I do not dislike him. I consider him, on the contrary, as a very
respectable man, who has every body’s good word, and nobody’s notice;
who, has more money than he can spend, more time than he knows how
to employ, and two new coats every year.”
“Add to which,” cried Marianne, “that he has neither genius, taste,
nor spirit. That his understanding has no brilliancy, his feelings no ar-
dour, and his voice no expression.”
“You decide on his imperfections so much in the mass,” replied Eli-
nor, “and so much on the strength of your own imagination, that the
commendation I am able to give of him is comparatively cold and insipid.
I can only pronounce him to be a sensible man, well-bred, well-informed,
of gentle address, and, I believe, possessing an amiable heart.”
“Miss Dashwood,” cried Willoughby, “you are now using me un-
kindly. You are endeavouring to disarm me by reason, and to convince
me against my will. But it will not do. You shall find me as stubborn
as you can be artful. I have three unanswerable reasons for disliking
Colonel Brandon; he threatened me with rain when I wanted it to be
fine; he has found fault with the hanging of my curricle, and I cannot
persuade him to buy my brown mare. If it will be any satisfaction to
you, however, to be told, that I believe his character to be in other re-
spects irreproachable, I am ready to confess it. And in return for an
acknowledgment, which must give me some pain, you cannot deny me
the privilege of disliking him as much as ever.”
36
JANE AUSTEN
Chapter 11
37
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
This was the season of happiness to Marianne. Her heart was de-
voted to Willoughby, and the fond attachment to Norland, which she
brought with her from Sussex, was more likely to be softened than she
had thought it possible before, by the charms which his society bestowed
on her present home.
Elinor’s happiness was not so great. Her heart was not so much at
ease, nor her satisfaction in their amusements so pure. They afforded
her no companion that could make amends for what she had left behind,
nor that could teach her to think of Norland with less regret than ever.
Neither Lady Middleton nor Mrs. Jennings could supply to her the con-
versation she missed; although the latter was an everlasting talker, and
from the first had regarded her with a kindness which ensured her a
large share of her discourse. She had already repeated her own history
to Elinor three or four times; and had Elinor’s memory been equal to
her means of improvement, she might have known very early in their
acquaintance all the particulars of Mr. Jenning’s last illness, and what he
said to his wife a few minutes before he died. Lady Middleton was more
agreeable than her mother only in being more silent. Elinor needed little
observation to perceive that her reserve was a mere calmness of manner
with which sense had nothing to do. Towards her husband and mother
she was the same as to them; and intimacy was therefore neither to be
looked for nor desired. She had nothing to say one day that she had
not said the day before. Her insipidity was invariable, for even her spir-
its were always the same; and though she did not oppose the parties
arranged by her husband, provided every thing were conducted in style
and her two eldest children attended her, she never appeared to receive
more enjoyment from them than she might have experienced in sitting
at home;—and so little did her presence add to the pleasure of the oth-
ers, by any share in their conversation, that they were sometimes only
reminded of her being amongst them by her solicitude about her trouble-
some boys.
In Colonel Brandon alone, of all her new acquaintance, did Elinor
find a person who could in any degree claim the respect of abilities, excite
the interest of friendship, or give pleasure as a companion. Willoughby
was out of the question. Her admiration and regard, even her sisterly
regard, was all his own; but he was a lover; his attentions were wholly
Marianne’s, and a far less agreeable man might have been more gener-
ally pleasing. Colonel Brandon, unfortunately for himself, had no such
encouragement to think only of Marianne, and in conversing with Elinor
38
JANE AUSTEN
39
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
greatly resembled your sister, who thought and judged like her, but who
from an inforced change—from a series of unfortunate circumstances”—
Here he stopt suddenly; appeared to think that he had said too much,
and by his countenance gave rise to conjectures, which might not other-
wise have entered Elinor’s head. The lady would probably have passed
without suspicion, had he not convinced Miss Dashwood that what con-
cerned her ought not to escape his lips. As it was, it required but a
slight effort of fancy to connect his emotion with the tender recollection
of past regard. Elinor attempted no more. But Marianne, in her place,
would not have done so little. The whole story would have been speedily
formed under her active imagination; and every thing established in the
most melancholy order of disastrous love.
Chapter 12
40
JANE AUSTEN
man so little, or at least so lately known to her. This was too much.
“You are mistaken, Elinor,” said she warmly, “in supposing I know
very little of Willoughby. I have not known him long indeed, but I am
much better acquainted with him, than I am with any other creature in
the world, except yourself and mama. It is not time or opportunity that
is to determine intimacy;—it is disposition alone. Seven years would be
insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven
days are more than enough for others. I should hold myself guilty of
greater impropriety in accepting a horse from my brother, than from
Willoughby. Of John I know very little, though we have lived together
for years; but of Willoughby my judgment has long been formed.”
Elinor thought it wisest to touch that point no more. She knew her
sister’s temper. Opposition on so tender a subject would only attach her
the more to her own opinion. But by an appeal to her affection for her
mother, by representing the inconveniences which that indulgent mother
must draw on herself, if (as would probably be the case) she consented
to this increase of establishment, Marianne was shortly subdued; and
she promised not to tempt her mother to such imprudent kindness by
mentioning the offer, and to tell Willoughby when she saw him next,
that it must be declined.
She was faithful to her word; and when Willoughby called at the cot-
tage, the same day, Elinor heard her express her disappointment to him
in a low voice, on being obliged to forego the acceptance of his present.
The reasons for this alteration were at the same time related, and they
were such as to make further entreaty on his side impossible. His concern
however was very apparent; and after expressing it with earnestness, he
added, in the same low voice,—“But, Marianne, the horse is still yours,
though you cannot use it now. I shall keep it only till you can claim
it. When you leave Barton to form your own establishment in a more
lasting home, Queen Mab shall receive you.”
This was all overheard by Miss Dashwood; and in the whole of the
sentence, in his manner of pronouncing it, and in his addressing her sister
by her Christian name alone, she instantly saw an intimacy so decided, a
meaning so direct, as marked a perfect agreement between them. From
that moment she doubted not of their being engaged to each other; and
the belief of it created no other surprise than that she, or any of their
friends, should be left by tempers so frank, to discover it by accident.
Margaret related something to her the next day, which placed this
matter in a still clearer light. Willoughby had spent the preceding evening
41
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
with them, and Margaret, by being left some time in the parlour with
only him and Marianne, had had opportunity for observations, which,
with a most important face, she communicated to her eldest sister, when
they were next by themselves.
“Oh, Elinor!” she cried, “I have such a secret to tell you about Mari-
anne. I am sure she will be married to Mr. Willoughby very soon.”
“You have said so,” replied Elinor, “almost every day since they first
met on High-church Down; and they had not known each other a week,
I believe, before you were certain that Marianne wore his picture round
her neck; but it turned out to be only the miniature of our great uncle.”
“But indeed this is quite another thing. I am sure they will be married
very soon, for he has got a lock of her hair.”
“Take care, Margaret. It may be only the hair of some great uncle of
his.”
“But, indeed, Elinor, it is Marianne’s. I am almost sure it is, for I saw
him cut it off. Last night after tea, when you and mama went out of the
room, they were whispering and talking together as fast as could be, and
he seemed to be begging something of her, and presently he took up her
scissors and cut off a long lock of her hair, for it was all tumbled down
her back; and he kissed it, and folded it up in a piece of white paper; and
put it into his pocket-book.”
For such particulars, stated on such authority, Elinor could not with-
hold her credit; nor was she disposed to it, for the circumstance was in
perfect unison with what she had heard and seen herself.
Margaret’s sagacity was not always displayed in a way so satisfac-
tory to her sister. When Mrs. Jennings attacked her one evening at the
park, to give the name of the young man who was Elinor’s particular
favourite, which had been long a matter of great curiosity to her, Mar-
garet answered by looking at her sister, and saying, “I must not tell, may
I, Elinor?”
This of course made every body laugh; and Elinor tried to laugh too.
But the effort was painful. She was convinced that Margaret had fixed
on a person whose name she could not bear with composure to become
a standing joke with Mrs. Jennings.
Marianne felt for her most sincerely; but she did more harm than
good to the cause, by turning very red and saying in an angry manner to
Margaret,
“Remember that whatever your conjectures may be, you have no
right to repeat them.”
42
JANE AUSTEN
“I never had any conjectures about it,” replied Margaret; “it was you
who told me of it yourself.”
This increased the mirth of the company, and Margaret was eagerly
pressed to say something more.
“Oh! pray, Miss Margaret, let us know all about it,” said Mrs. Jen-
nings. “What is the gentleman’s name?”
“I must not tell, ma’am. But I know very well what it is; and I know
where he is too.”
“Yes, yes, we can guess where he is; at his own house at Norland to
be sure. He is the curate of the parish I dare say.”
“No, that he is not. He is of no profession at all.”
“Margaret,” said Marianne with great warmth, “you know that all
this is an invention of your own, and that there is no such person in
existence.”
“Well, then, he is lately dead, Marianne, for I am sure there was such
a man once, and his name begins with an F.”
Most grateful did Elinor feel to Lady Middleton for observing, at this
moment, “that it rained very hard,” though she believed the interruption
to proceed less from any attention to her, than from her ladyship’s great
dislike of all such inelegant subjects of raillery as delighted her husband
and mother. The idea however started by her, was immediately pursued
by Colonel Brandon, who was on every occasion mindful of the feelings
of others; and much was said on the subject of rain by both of them.
Willoughby opened the piano-forte, and asked Marianne to sit down to
it; and thus amidst the various endeavours of different people to quit the
topic, it fell to the ground. But not so easily did Elinor recover from the
alarm into which it had thrown her.
A party was formed this evening for going on the following day to
see a very fine place about twelve miles from Barton, belonging to a
brother-in-law of Colonel Brandon, without whose interest it could not
be seen, as the proprietor, who was then abroad, had left strict orders
on that head. The grounds were declared to be highly beautiful, and
Sir John, who was particularly warm in their praise, might be allowed
to be a tolerable judge, for he had formed parties to visit them, at least,
twice every summer for the last ten years. They contained a noble piece
of water; a sail on which was to a form a great part of the morning’s
amusement; cold provisions were to be taken, open carriages only to be
employed, and every thing conducted in the usual style of a complete
party of pleasure.
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SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
Chapter 13
44
JANE AUSTEN
45
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
Colonel Brandon again repeated his sorrow at being the cause of dis-
appointing the party; but at the same time declared it to be unavoidable.
“Well, then, when will you come back again?”
“I hope we shall see you at Barton,” added her ladyship, “as soon
as you can conveniently leave town; and we must put off the party to
Whitwell till you return.”
“You are very obliging. But it is so uncertain, when I may have it in
my power to return, that I dare not engage for it at all.”
“Oh! he must and shall come back,” cried Sir John. “If he is not here
by the end of the week, I shall go after him.”
“Ay, so do, Sir John,” cried Mrs. Jennings, “and then perhaps you
may find out what his business is.”
“I do not want to pry into other men’s concerns. I suppose it is
something he is ashamed of.”
Colonel Brandon’s horses were announced.
“You do not go to town on horseback, do you?” added Sir John.
“No. Only to Honiton. I shall then go post.”
“Well, as you are resolved to go, I wish you a good journey. But you
had better change your mind.”
“I assure you it is not in my power.”
He then took leave of the whole party.
“Is there no chance of my seeing you and your sisters in town this
winter, Miss Dashwood?”
“I am afraid, none at all.”
“Then I must bid you farewell for a longer time than I should wish
to do.”
To Marianne, he merely bowed and said nothing.
“Come Colonel,” said Mrs. Jennings, “before you go, do let us know
what you are going about.”
He wished her a good morning, and, attended by Sir John, left the
room.
The complaints and lamentations which politeness had hitherto re-
strained, now burst forth universally; and they all agreed again and again
how provoking it was to be so disappointed.
“I can guess what his business is, however,” said Mrs. Jennings exult-
ingly.
“Can you, ma’am?” said almost every body.
“Yes; it is about Miss Williams, I am sure.”
“And who is Miss Williams?” asked Marianne.
46
JANE AUSTEN
“What! do not you know who Miss Williams is? I am sure you must
have heard of her before. She is a relation of the Colonel’s, my dear; a
very near relation. We will not say how near, for fear of shocking the
young ladies.” Then, lowering her voice a little, she said to Elinor, “She
is his natural daughter.”
“Indeed!”
“Oh, yes; and as like him as she can stare. I dare say the Colonel will
leave her all his fortune.”
When Sir John returned, he joined most heartily in the general re-
gret on so unfortunate an event; concluding however by observing, that
as they were all got together, they must do something by way of being
happy; and after some consultation it was agreed, that although happi-
ness could only be enjoyed at Whitwell, they might procure a tolerable
composure of mind by driving about the country. The carriages were
then ordered; Willoughby’s was first, and Marianne never looked hap-
pier than when she got into it. He drove through the park very fast, and
they were soon out of sight; and nothing more of them was seen till their
return, which did not happen till after the return of all the rest. They
both seemed delighted with their drive; but said only in general terms
that they had kept in the lanes, while the others went on the downs.
It was settled that there should be a dance in the evening, and that
every body should be extremely merry all day long. Some more of
the Careys came to dinner, and they had the pleasure of sitting down
nearly twenty to table, which Sir John observed with great contentment.
Willoughby took his usual place between the two elder Miss Dashwoods.
Mrs. Jennings sat on Elinor’s right hand; and they had not been long
seated, before she leant behind her and Willoughby, and said to Mari-
anne, loud enough for them both to hear, “I have found you out in spite
of all your tricks. I know where you spent the morning.”
Marianne coloured, and replied very hastily, “Where, pray?”—
“Did not you know,” said Willoughby, “that we had been out in my
curricle?”
“Yes, yes, Mr. Impudence, I know that very well, and I was deter-
mined to find out where you had been to.—I hope you like your house,
Miss Marianne. It is a very large one, I know; and when I come to see
you, I hope you will have new-furnished it, for it wanted it very much
when I was there six years ago.”
Marianne turned away in great confusion. Mrs. Jennings laughed
heartily; and Elinor found that in her resolution to know where they
47
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
had been, she had actually made her own woman enquire of Mr.
Willoughby’s groom; and that she had by that method been informed
that they had gone to Allenham, and spent a considerable time there in
walking about the garden and going all over the house.
Elinor could hardly believe this to be true, as it seemed very un-
likely that Willoughby should propose, or Marianne consent, to enter
the house while Mrs. Smith was in it, with whom Marianne had not the
smallest acquaintance.
As soon as they left the dining-room, Elinor enquired of her about
it; and great was her surprise when she found that every circumstance
related by Mrs. Jennings was perfectly true. Marianne was quite angry
with her for doubting it.
“Why should you imagine, Elinor, that we did not go there, or that
we did not see the house? Is not it what you have often wished to do
yourself?”
“Yes, Marianne, but I would not go while Mrs. Smith was there, and
with no other companion than Mr. Willoughby.”
“Mr. Willoughby however is the only person who can have a right to
shew that house; and as he went in an open carriage, it was impossible
to have any other companion. I never spent a pleasanter morning in my
life.”
“I am afraid,” replied Elinor, “that the pleasantness of an employ-
ment does not always evince its propriety.”
“On the contrary, nothing can be a stronger proof of it, Elinor; for
if there had been any real impropriety in what I did, I should have been
sensible of it at the time, for we always know when we are acting wrong,
and with such a conviction I could have had no pleasure.”
“But, my dear Marianne, as it has already exposed you to some very
impertinent remarks, do you not now begin to doubt the discretion of
your own conduct?”
“If the impertinent remarks of Mrs. Jennings are to be the proof
of impropriety in conduct, we are all offending every moment of our
lives. I value not her censure any more than I should do her commenda-
tion. I am not sensible of having done anything wrong in walking over
Mrs. Smith’s grounds, or in seeing her house. They will one day be Mr.
Willoughby’s, and—”
“If they were one day to be your own, Marianne, you would not be
justified in what you have done.”
She blushed at this hint; but it was even visibly gratifying to her;
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and after a ten minutes’ interval of earnest thought, she came to her
sister again, and said with great good humour, “Perhaps, Elinor, it was
rather ill-judged in me to go to Allenham; but Mr. Willoughby wanted
particularly to shew me the place; and it is a charming house, I assure
you.—There is one remarkably pretty sitting room up stairs; of a nice
comfortable size for constant use, and with modern furniture it would
be delightful. It is a corner room, and has windows on two sides. On one
side you look across the bowling-green, behind the house, to a beautiful
hanging wood, and on the other you have a view of the church and
village, and, beyond them, of those fine bold hills that we have so often
admired. I did not see it to advantage, for nothing could be more forlorn
than the furniture,—but if it were newly fitted up—a couple of hundred
pounds, Willoughby says, would make it one of the pleasantest summer-
rooms in England.”
Could Elinor have listened to her without interruption from the oth-
ers, she would have described every room in the house with equal de-
light.
Chapter 14
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SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
always rather sickly. I would lay any wager it is about Miss Williams. It
is not so very likely he should be distressed in his circumstances now, for
he is a very prudent man, and to be sure must have cleared the estate by
this time. I wonder what it can be! May be his sister is worse at Avignon,
and has sent for him over. His setting off in such a hurry seems very like
it. Well, I wish him out of all his trouble with all my heart, and a good
wife into the bargain.”
So wondered, so talked Mrs. Jennings. Her opinion varying with
every fresh conjecture, and all seeming equally probable as they arose.
Elinor, though she felt really interested in the welfare of Colonel Bran-
don, could not bestow all the wonder on his going so suddenly away,
which Mrs. Jennings was desirous of her feeling; for besides that the
circumstance did not in her opinion justify such lasting amazement or
variety of speculation, her wonder was otherwise disposed of. It was
engrossed by the extraordinary silence of her sister and Willoughby on
the subject, which they must know to be peculiarly interesting to them
all. As this silence continued, every day made it appear more strange
and more incompatible with the disposition of both. Why they should
not openly acknowledge to her mother and herself, what their constant
behaviour to each other declared to have taken place, Elinor could not
imagine.
She could easily conceive that marriage might not be immediately
in their power; for though Willoughby was independent, there was no
reason to believe him rich. His estate had been rated by Sir John at
about six or seven hundred a year; but he lived at an expense to which
that income could hardly be equal, and he had himself often complained
of his poverty. But for this strange kind of secrecy maintained by them
relative to their engagement, which in fact concealed nothing at all, she
could not account; and it was so wholly contradictory to their general
opinions and practice, that a doubt sometimes entered her mind of their
being really engaged, and this doubt was enough to prevent her making
any inquiry of Marianne.
Nothing could be more expressive of attachment to them all, than
Willoughby’s behaviour. To Marianne it had all the distinguishing ten-
derness which a lover’s heart could give, and to the rest of the family
it was the affectionate attention of a son and a brother. The cottage
seemed to be considered and loved by him as his home; many more of
his hours were spent there than at Allenham; and if no general engage-
ment collected them at the park, the exercise which called him out in
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JANE AUSTEN
the morning was almost certain of ending there, where the rest of the
day was spent by himself at the side of Marianne, and by his favourite
pointer at her feet.
One evening in particular, about a week after Colonel Brandon left
the country, his heart seemed more than usually open to every feeling
of attachment to the objects around him; and on Mrs. Dashwood’s hap-
pening to mention her design of improving the cottage in the spring, he
warmly opposed every alteration of a place which affection had estab-
lished as perfect with him.
“What!” he exclaimed—“Improve this dear cottage! No. that I will
never consent to. Not a stone must be added to its walls, not an inch to
its size, if my feelings are regarded.”
“Do not be alarmed,” said Miss Dashwood, “nothing of the kind
will be done; for my mother will never have money enough to attempt
it.”
“I am heartily glad of it,” he cried. “May she always be poor, if she
can employ her riches no better.”
“Thank you, Willoughby. But you may be assured that I would not
sacrifice one sentiment of local attachment of yours, or of any one whom
I loved, for all the improvements in the world. Depend upon it that
whatever unemployed sum may remain, when I make up my accounts in
the spring, I would even rather lay it uselessly by than dispose of it in a
manner so painful to you. But are you really so attached to this place as
to see no defect in it?”
“I am,” said he. “To me it is faultless. Nay, more, I consider it as the
only form of building in which happiness is attainable, and were I rich
enough I would instantly pull Combe down, and build it up again in the
exact plan of this cottage.”
“With dark narrow stairs and a kitchen that smokes, I suppose,” said
Elinor.
“Yes,” cried he in the same eager tone, “with all and every thing be-
longing to it;—in no one convenience or inconvenience about it, should
the least variation be perceptible. Then, and then only, under such a roof,
I might perhaps be as happy at Combe as I have been at Barton.”
“I flatter myself,” replied Elinor, “that even under the disadvantage
of better rooms and a broader staircase, you will hereafter find your own
house as faultless as you now do this.”
“There certainly are circumstances,” said Willoughby, “which might
greatly endear it to me; but this place will always have one claim of my
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JANE AUSTEN
Chapter 15
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54
JANE AUSTEN
In about half an hour her mother returned, and though her eyes were
red, her countenance was not uncheerful.
“Our dear Willoughby is now some miles from Barton, Elinor,” said
she, as she sat down to work, “and with how heavy a heart does he
travel?”
“It is all very strange. So suddenly to be gone! It seems but the work
of a moment. And last night he was with us so happy, so cheerful, so
affectionate? And now, after only ten minutes notice—Gone too without
intending to return!—Something more than what be owned to us must
have happened. He did not speak, he did not behave like himself. You
must have seen the difference as well as I. What can it be? Can they have
quarrelled? Why else should he have shewn such unwillingness to accept
your invitation here?”—
“It was not inclination that he wanted, Elinor; I could plainly see
that. He had not the power of accepting it. I have thought it all over
I assure you, and I can perfectly account for every thing that at first
seemed strange to me as well as to you.”
“Can you, indeed!”
“Yes. I have explained it to myself in the most satisfactory way;—but
you, Elinor, who love to doubt where you can—it will not satisfy you, I
know; but you shall not talk me out of my trust in it. I am persuaded that
Mrs. Smith suspects his regard for Marianne, disapproves of it, (perhaps
because she has other views for him,) and on that account is eager to get
him away;—and that the business which she sends him off to transact
is invented as an excuse to dismiss him. This is what I believe to have
happened. He is, moreover, aware that she does disapprove the connec-
tion, he dares not therefore at present confess to her his engagement with
Marianne, and he feels himself obliged, from his dependent situation, to
give into her schemes, and absent himself from Devonshire for a while.
You will tell me, I know, that this may or may not have happened; but
I will listen to no cavil, unless you can point out any other method of
understanding the affair as satisfactory at this. And now, Elinor, what
have you to say?”
“Nothing, for you have anticipated my answer.”
“Then you would have told me, that it might or might not have hap-
pened. Oh, Elinor, how incomprehensible are your feelings! You had
rather take evil upon credit than good. You had rather look out for mis-
ery for Marianne, and guilt for poor Willoughby, than an apology for
the latter. You are resolved to think him blameable, because he took
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leave of us with less affection than his usual behaviour has shewn. And
is no allowance to be made for inadvertence, or for spirits depressed by
recent disappointment? Are no probabilities to be accepted, merely be-
cause they are not certainties? Is nothing due to the man whom we have
all such reason to love, and no reason in the world to think ill of? To the
possibility of motives unanswerable in themselves, though unavoidably
secret for a while? And, after all, what is it you suspect him of?”
“I can hardly tell myself. But suspicion of something unpleasant is
the inevitable consequence of such an alteration as we just witnessed in
him. There is great truth, however, in what you have now urged of the
allowances which ought to be made for him, and it is my wish to be
candid in my judgment of every body. Willoughby may undoubtedly
have very sufficient reasons for his conduct, and I will hope that he has.
But it would have been more like Willoughby to acknowledge them at
once. Secrecy may be advisable; but still I cannot help wondering at its
being practiced by him.”
“Do not blame him, however, for departing from his character, where
the deviation is necessary. But you really do admit the justice of what I
have said in his defence?—I am happy—and he is acquitted.”
“Not entirely. It may be proper to conceal their engagement (if they
are engaged) from Mrs. Smith—and if that is the case, it must be highly
expedient for Willoughby to be but little in Devonshire at present. But
this is no excuse for their concealing it from us.”
“Concealing it from us! my dear child, do you accuse Willoughby
and Marianne of concealment? This is strange indeed, when your eyes
have been reproaching them every day for incautiousness.”
“I want no proof of their affection,” said Elinor; “but of their engage-
ment I do.”
“I am perfectly satisfied of both.”
“Yet not a syllable has been said to you on the subject, by either of
them.”
“I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly.
Has not his behaviour to Marianne and to all of us, for at least the last
fortnight, declared that he loved and considered her as his future wife,
and that he felt for us the attachment of the nearest relation? Have we
not perfectly understood each other? Has not my consent been daily
asked by his looks, his manner, his attentive and affectionate respect?
My Elinor, is it possible to doubt their engagement? How could such
a thought occur to you? How is it to be supposed that Willoughby,
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JANE AUSTEN
persuaded as he must be of your sister’s love, should leave her, and leave
her perhaps for months, without telling her of his affection;—that they
should part without a mutual exchange of confidence?”
“I confess,” replied Elinor, “that every circumstance except one is in
favour of their engagement; but that one is the total silence of both on
the subject, and with me it almost outweighs every other.”
“How strange this is! You must think wretchedly indeed of
Willoughby, if, after all that has openly passed between them, you can
doubt the nature of the terms on which they are together. Has he been
acting a part in his behaviour to your sister all this time? Do you suppose
him really indifferent to her?”
“No, I cannot think that. He must and does love her I am sure.”
“But with a strange kind of tenderness, if he can leave her with such
indifference, such carelessness of the future, as you attribute to him.”
“You must remember, my dear mother, that I have never considered
this matter as certain. I have had my doubts, I confess; but they are
fainter than they were, and they may soon be entirely done away. If we
find they correspond, every fear of mine will be removed.”
“A mighty concession indeed! If you were to see them at the altar,
you would suppose they were going to be married. Ungracious girl!
But I require no such proof. Nothing in my opinion has ever passed
to justify doubt; no secrecy has been attempted; all has been uniformly
open and unreserved. You cannot doubt your sister’s wishes. It must
be Willoughby therefore whom you suspect. But why? Is he not a man
of honour and feeling? Has there been any inconsistency on his side to
create alarm? can he be deceitful?”
“I hope not, I believe not,” cried Elinor. “I love Willoughby, sincerely
love him; and suspicion of his integrity cannot be more painful to your-
self than to me. It has been involuntary, and I will not encourage it. I
was startled, I confess, by the alteration in his manners this morning;—
he did not speak like himself, and did not return your kindness with any
cordiality. But all this may be explained by such a situation of his affairs
as you have supposed. He had just parted from my sister, had seen her
leave him in the greatest affliction; and if he felt obliged, from a fear
of offending Mrs. Smith, to resist the temptation of returning here soon,
and yet aware that by declining your invitation, by saying that he was
going away for some time, he should seem to act an ungenerous, a suspi-
cious part by our family, be might well be embarrassed and disturbed. In
such a case, a plain and open avowal of his difficulties would have been
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more to his honour I think, as well as more consistent with his general
character;—but I will not raise objections against any one’s conduct on
so illiberal a foundation, as a difference in judgment from myself, or a
deviation from what I may think right and consistent.”
“You speak very properly. Willoughby certainly does not deserve to
be suspected. Though we have not known him long, he is no stranger
in this part of the world; and who has ever spoken to his disadvantage?
Had he been in a situation to act independently and marry immediately,
it might have been odd that he should leave us without acknowledging
everything to me at once: but this is not the case. It is an engagement
in some respects not prosperously begun, for their marriage must be at
a very uncertain distance; and even secrecy, as far as it can be observed,
may now be very advisable.”
They were interrupted by the entrance of Margaret; and Elinor was
then at liberty to think over the representations of her mother, to ac-
knowledge the probability of many, and hope for the justice of all.
They saw nothing of Marianne till dinner time, when she entered the
room and took her place at the table without saying a word. Her eyes
were red and swollen; and it seemed as if her tears were even then re-
strained with difficulty. She avoided the looks of them all, could neither
eat nor speak, and after some time, on her mother’s silently pressing her
hand with tender compassion, her small degree of fortitude was quite
overcome, she burst into tears and left the room.
This violent oppression of spirits continued the whole evening. She
was without any power, because she was without any desire of command
over herself. The slightest mention of anything relative to Willoughby
overpowered her in an instant; and though her family were most anx-
iously attentive to her comfort, it was impossible for them, if they spoke
at all, to keep clear of every subject which her feelings connected with
him.
Chapter 16
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JANE AUSTEN
disgrace, left her in no danger of incurring it. She was awake the whole
night, and she wept the greatest part of it. She got up with a headache,
was unable to talk, and unwilling to take any nourishment; giving pain
every moment to her mother and sisters, and forbidding all attempt at
consolation from either. Her sensibility was potent enough!
When breakfast was over she walked out by herself, and wandered
about the village of Allenham, indulging the recollection of past enjoy-
ment and crying over the present reverse for the chief of the morning.
The evening passed off in the equal indulgence of feeling. She played
over every favourite song that she had been used to play to Willoughby,
every air in which their voices had been oftenest joined, and sat at the
instrument gazing on every line of music that he had written out for her,
till her heart was so heavy that no farther sadness could be gained; and
this nourishment of grief was every day applied. She spent whole hours
at the pianoforte alternately singing and crying; her voice often totally
suspended by her tears. In books too, as well as in music, she courted
the misery which a contrast between the past and present was certain of
giving. She read nothing but what they had been used to read together.
Such violence of affliction indeed could not be supported for ever; it
sunk within a few days into a calmer melancholy; but these employments,
to which she daily recurred, her solitary walks and silent meditations,
still produced occasional effusions of sorrow as lively as ever.
No letter from Willoughby came; and none seemed expected by Mar-
ianne. Her mother was surprised, and Elinor again became uneasy. But
Mrs. Dashwood could find explanations whenever she wanted them,
which at least satisfied herself.
“Remember, Elinor,” said she, “how very often Sir John fetches our
letters himself from the post, and carries them to it. We have already
agreed that secrecy may be necessary, and we must acknowledge that it
could not be maintained if their correspondence were to pass through Sir
John’s hands.”
Elinor could not deny the truth of this, and she tried to find in it a
motive sufficient for their silence. But there was one method so direct,
so simple, and in her opinion so eligible of knowing the real state of
the affair, and of instantly removing all mystery, that she could not help
suggesting it to her mother.
“Why do you not ask Marianne at once,” said she, “whether she is
or she is not engaged to Willoughby? From you, her mother, and so kind,
so indulgent a mother, the question could not give offence. It would be
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the natural result of your affection for her. She used to be all unreserve,
and to you more especially.”
“I would not ask such a question for the world. Supposing it possible
that they are not engaged, what distress would not such an enquiry in-
flict! At any rate it would be most ungenerous. I should never deserve her
confidence again, after forcing from her a confession of what is meant at
present to be unacknowledged to any one. I know Marianne’s heart: I
know that she dearly loves me, and that I shall not be the last to whom
the affair is made known, when circumstances make the revealment of
it eligible. I would not attempt to force the confidence of any one; of a
child much less; because a sense of duty would prevent the denial which
her wishes might direct.”
Elinor thought this generosity overstrained, considering her sister’s
youth, and urged the matter farther, but in vain; common sense, common
care, common prudence, were all sunk in Mrs. Dashwood’s romantic
delicacy.
It was several days before Willoughby’s name was mentioned before
Marianne by any of her family; Sir John and Mrs. Jennings, indeed, were
not so nice; their witticisms added pain to many a painful hour;—but
one evening, Mrs. Dashwood, accidentally taking up a volume of Shake-
speare, exclaimed,
“We have never finished Hamlet, Marianne; our dear Willoughby
went away before we could get through it. We will put it by, that when
he comes again . . . But it may be months, perhaps, before that happens.”
“Months!” cried Marianne, with strong surprise. “No—nor many
weeks.”
Mrs. Dashwood was sorry for what she had said; but it gave Elinor
pleasure, as it produced a reply from Marianne so expressive of confi-
dence in Willoughby and knowledge of his intentions.
One morning, about a week after his leaving the country, Marianne
was prevailed on to join her sisters in their usual walk, instead of wander-
ing away by herself. Hitherto she had carefully avoided every companion
in her rambles. If her sisters intended to walk on the downs, she directly
stole away towards the lanes; if they talked of the valley, she was as
speedy in climbing the hills, and could never be found when the others
set off. But at length she was secured by the exertions of Elinor, who
greatly disapproved such continual seclusion. They walked along the
road through the valley, and chiefly in silence, for Marianne’s mind could
not be controlled, and Elinor, satisfied with gaining one point, would not
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then attempt more. Beyond the entrance of the valley, where the country,
though still rich, was less wild and more open, a long stretch of the road
which they had travelled on first coming to Barton, lay before them; and
on reaching that point, they stopped to look around them, and exam-
ine a prospect which formed the distance of their view from the cottage,
from a spot which they had never happened to reach in any of their
walks before.
Amongst the objects in the scene, they soon discovered an animated
one; it was a man on horseback riding towards them. In a few minutes
they could distinguish him to be a gentleman; and in a moment after-
wards Marianne rapturously exclaimed,
“It is he; it is indeed;—I know it is!”—and was hastening to meet
him, when Elinor cried out,
“Indeed, Marianne, I think you are mistaken. It is not Willoughby.
The person is not tall enough for him, and has not his air.”
“He has, he has,” cried Marianne, “I am sure he has. His air, his
coat, his horse. I knew how soon he would come.”
She walked eagerly on as she spoke; and Elinor, to screen Marianne
from particularity, as she felt almost certain of its not being Willoughby,
quickened her pace and kept up with her. They were soon within thirty
yards of the gentleman. Marianne looked again; her heart sunk within
her; and abruptly turning round, she was hurrying back, when the voices
of both her sisters were raised to detain her; a third, almost as well
known as Willoughby’s, joined them in begging her to stop, and she
turned round with surprise to see and welcome Edward Ferrars.
He was the only person in the world who could at that moment be
forgiven for not being Willoughby; the only one who could have gained
a smile from her; but she dispersed her tears to smile on him, and in her
sister’s happiness forgot for a time her own disappointment.
He dismounted, and giving his horse to his servant, walked back with
them to Barton, whither he was purposely coming to visit them.
He was welcomed by them all with great cordiality, but especially
by Marianne, who showed more warmth of regard in her reception of
him than even Elinor herself. To Marianne, indeed, the meeting between
Edward and her sister was but a continuation of that unaccountable cold-
ness which she had often observed at Norland in their mutual behaviour.
On Edward’s side, more particularly, there was a deficiency of all that
a lover ought to look and say on such an occasion. He was confused,
seemed scarcely sensible of pleasure in seeing them, looked neither rap-
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SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
turous nor gay, said little but what was forced from him by questions,
and distinguished Elinor by no mark of affection. Marianne saw and
listened with increasing surprise. She began almost to feel a dislike of
Edward; and it ended, as every feeling must end with her, by carrying
back her thoughts to Willoughby, whose manners formed a contrast suf-
ficiently striking to those of his brother elect.
After a short silence which succeeded the first surprise and enquiries
of meeting, Marianne asked Edward if he came directly from London.
No, he had been in Devonshire a fortnight.
“A fortnight!” she repeated, surprised at his being so long in the
same county with Elinor without seeing her before.
He looked rather distressed as he added, that he had been staying
with some friends near Plymouth.
“Have you been lately in Sussex?” said Elinor.
“I was at Norland about a month ago.”
“And how does dear, dear Norland look?” cried Marianne.
“Dear, dear Norland,” said Elinor, “probably looks much as it al-
ways does at this time of the year. The woods and walks thickly covered
with dead leaves.”
“Oh,” cried Marianne, “with what transporting sensation have I for-
merly seen them fall! How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them
driven in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the
season, the air altogether inspired! Now there is no one to regard them.
They are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much
as possible from the sight.”
“It is not every one,” said Elinor, “who has your passion for dead
leaves.”
“No; my feelings are not often shared, not often understood. But
sometimes they are.”—As she said this, she sunk into a reverie for a few
moments;—but rousing herself again, “Now, Edward,” said she, calling
his attention to the prospect, “here is Barton valley. Look up to it, and
be tranquil if you can. Look at those hills! Did you ever see their equals?
To the left is Barton park, amongst those woods and plantations. You
may see the end of the house. And there, beneath that farthest hill, which
rises with such grandeur, is our cottage.”
“It is a beautiful country,” he replied; “but these bottoms must be
dirty in winter.”
“How can you think of dirt, with such objects before you?”
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“Because,” replied he, smiling, “among the rest of the objects before
me, I see a very dirty lane.”
“How strange!” said Marianne to herself as she walked on.
“Have you an agreeable neighbourhood here? Are the Middletons
pleasant people?”
“No, not all,” answered Marianne; “we could not be more unfortu-
nately situated.”
“Marianne,” cried her sister, “how can you say so? How can you be
so unjust? They are a very respectable family, Mr. Ferrars; and towards
us have behaved in the friendliest manner. Have you forgot, Marianne,
how many pleasant days we have owed to them?”
“No,” said Marianne, in a low voice, “nor how many painful mo-
ments.”
Elinor took no notice of this; and directing her attention to their
visitor, endeavoured to support something like discourse with him, by
talking of their present residence, its conveniences, &c. extorting from
him occasional questions and remarks. His coldness and reserve morti-
fied her severely; she was vexed and half angry; but resolving to regulate
her behaviour to him by the past rather than the present, she avoided
every appearance of resentment or displeasure, and treated him as she
thought he ought to be treated from the family connection.
Chapter 17
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JANE AUSTEN
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unchanged, I presume?”
“Undoubtedly. At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is
not likely that I should now see or hear any thing to change them.”
“Marianne is as steadfast as ever, you see,” said Elinor, “she is not at
all altered.”
“She is only grown a little more grave than she was.”
“Nay, Edward,” said Marianne, “you need not reproach me. You
are not very gay yourself.”
“Why should you think so!” replied he, with a sigh. “But gaiety
never was a part of my character.”
“Nor do I think it a part of Marianne’s,” said Elinor; “I should hardly
call her a lively girl—she is very earnest, very eager in all she does—
sometimes talks a great deal and always with animation—but she is not
often really merry.”
“I believe you are right,” he replied, “and yet I have always set her
down as a lively girl.”
“I have frequently detected myself in such kind of mistakes,” said
Elinor, “in a total misapprehension of character in some point or other:
fancying people so much more gay or grave, or ingenious or stupid than
they really are, and I can hardly tell why or in what the deception origi-
nated. Sometimes one is guided by what they say of themselves, and very
frequently by what other people say of them, without giving oneself time
to deliberate and judge.”
“But I thought it was right, Elinor,” said Marianne, “to be guided
wholly by the opinion of other people. I thought our judgments were
given us merely to be subservient to those of neighbours. This has always
been your doctrine, I am sure.”
“No, Marianne, never. My doctrine has never aimed at the subjection
of the understanding. All I have ever attempted to influence has been the
behaviour. You must not confound my meaning. I am guilty, I confess,
of having often wished you to treat our acquaintance in general with
greater attention; but when have I advised you to adopt their sentiments
or to conform to their judgment in serious matters?”
“You have not been able to bring your sister over to your plan of
general civility,” said Edward to Elinor, “Do you gain no ground?”
“Quite the contrary,” replied Elinor, looking expressively at Mari-
anne.
“My judgment,” he returned, “is all on your side of the question; but
I am afraid my practice is much more on your sister’s. I never wish to
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Chapter 18
E LINOR saw, with great uneasiness the low spirits of her friend. His
visit afforded her but a very partial satisfaction, while his own enjoy-
ment in it appeared so imperfect. It was evident that he was unhappy;
she wished it were equally evident that he still distinguished her by the
same affection which once she had felt no doubt of inspiring; but hith-
erto the continuance of his preference seemed very uncertain; and the
reservedness of his manner towards her contradicted one moment what
a more animated look had intimated the preceding one.
He joined her and Marianne in the breakfast-room the next morning
before the others were down; and Marianne, who was always eager to
promote their happiness as far as she could, soon left them to themselves.
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But before she was half way upstairs she heard the parlour door open,
and, turning round, was astonished to see Edward himself come out.
“I am going into the village to see my horses,” said be, “as you are
not yet ready for breakfast; I shall be back again presently.”
***
Edward returned to them with fresh admiration of the surrounding
country; in his walk to the village, he had seen many parts of the val-
ley to advantage; and the village itself, in a much higher situation than
the cottage, afforded a general view of the whole, which had exceedingly
pleased him. This was a subject which ensured Marianne’s attention, and
she was beginning to describe her own admiration of these scenes, and to
question him more minutely on the objects that had particularly struck
him, when Edward interrupted her by saying, “You must not enquire too
far, Marianne—remember I have no knowledge in the picturesque, and I
shall offend you by my ignorance and want of taste if we come to partic-
ulars. I shall call hills steep, which ought to be bold; surfaces strange and
uncouth, which ought to be irregular and rugged; and distant objects out
of sight, which ought only to be indistinct through the soft medium of
a hazy atmosphere. You must be satisfied with such admiration as I can
honestly give. I call it a very fine country—the hills are steep, the woods
seem full of fine timber, and the valley looks comfortable and snug—with
rich meadows and several neat farm houses scattered here and there. It
exactly answers my idea of a fine country, because it unites beauty with
utility—and I dare say it is a picturesque one too, because you admire
it; I can easily believe it to be full of rocks and promontories, grey moss
and brush wood, but these are all lost on me. I know nothing of the
picturesque.”
“I am afraid it is but too true,” said Marianne; “but why should you
boast of it?”
“I suspect,” said Elinor, “that to avoid one kind of affectation, Ed-
ward here falls into another. Because he believes many people pretend
to more admiration of the beauties of nature than they really feel, and is
disgusted with such pretensions, he affects greater indifference and less
discrimination in viewing them himself than he possesses. He is fastidi-
ous and will have an affectation of his own.”
“It is very true,” said Marianne, “that admiration of landscape
scenery is become a mere jargon. Every body pretends to feel and tries
to describe with the taste and elegance of him who first defined what
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sence of mind still more settled. He was particularly grave the whole
morning. Marianne severely censured herself for what she had said; but
her own forgiveness might have been more speedy, had she known how
little offence it had given her sister.
Before the middle of the day, they were visited by Sir John and Mrs.
Jennings, who, having heard of the arrival of a gentleman at the cottage,
came to take a survey of the guest. With the assistance of his mother-
in-law, Sir John was not long in discovering that the name of Ferrars
began with an F. and this prepared a future mine of raillery against the
devoted Elinor, which nothing but the newness of their acquaintance
with Edward could have prevented from being immediately sprung. But,
as it was, she only learned, from some very significant looks, how far
their penetration, founded on Margaret’s instructions, extended.
Sir John never came to the Dashwoods without either inviting them
to dine at the park the next day, or to drink tea with them that evening.
On the present occasion, for the better entertainment of their visitor, to-
wards whose amusement he felt himself bound to contribute, he wished
to engage them for both.
“You must drink tea with us to night,” said he, “for we shall be quite
alone—and tomorrow you must absolutely dine with us, for we shall be
a large party.”
Mrs. Jennings enforced the necessity. “And who knows but you may
raise a dance,” said she. “And that will tempt you, Miss Marianne.”
“A dance!” cried Marianne. “Impossible! Who is to dance?”
“Who! why yourselves, and the Careys, and Whitakers to be sure.—
What! you thought nobody could dance because a certain person that
shall be nameless is gone!”
“I wish with all my soul,” cried Sir John, “that Willoughby were
among us again.”
This, and Marianne’s blushing, gave new suspicions to Edward.
“And who is Willoughby?” said he, in a low voice, to Miss Dashwood,
by whom he was sitting.
She gave him a brief reply. Marianne’s countenance was more com-
municative. Edward saw enough to comprehend, not only the meaning
of others, but such of Marianne’s expressions as had puzzled him before;
and when their visitors left them, he went immediately round her, and
said, in a whisper, “I have been guessing. Shall I tell you my guess?”
“What do you mean?”
“Shall I tell you.”
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“Certainly.”
“Well then; I guess that Mr. Willoughby hunts.”
Marianne was surprised and confused, yet she could not help smiling
at the quiet archness of his manner, and after a moment’s silence, said,
“Oh, Edward! How can you?—But the time will come I hope . . . I
am sure you will like him.”
“I do not doubt it,” replied he, rather astonished at her earnestness
and warmth; for had he not imagined it to be a joke for the good of
her acquaintance in general, founded only on a something or a nothing
between Mr. Willoughby and herself, he would not have ventured to
mention it.
Chapter 19
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newspaper. Mrs. Palmer’s eye was now caught by the drawings which
hung round the room. She got up to examine them.
“Oh! dear, how beautiful these are! Well! how delightful! Do but
look, mama, how sweet! I declare they are quite charming; I could look
at them for ever.” And then sitting down again, she very soon forgot
that there were any such things in the room.
When Lady Middleton rose to go away, Mr. Palmer rose also, laid
down the newspaper, stretched himself and looked at them all around.
“My love, have you been asleep?” said his wife, laughing.
He made her no answer; and only observed, after again examining
the room, that it was very low pitched, and that the ceiling was crooked.
He then made his bow, and departed with the rest.
Sir John had been very urgent with them all to spend the next day at
the park. Mrs. Dashwood, who did not chuse to dine with them oftener
than they dined at the cottage, absolutely refused on her own account;
her daughters might do as they pleased. But they had no curiosity to see
how Mr. and Mrs. Palmer ate their dinner, and no expectation of plea-
sure from them in any other way. They attempted, therefore, likewise,
to excuse themselves; the weather was uncertain, and not likely to be
good. But Sir John would not be satisfied—the carriage should be sent
for them and they must come. Lady Middleton too, though she did not
press their mother, pressed them. Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. Palmer joined
their entreaties, all seemed equally anxious to avoid a family party; and
the young ladies were obliged to yield.
“Why should they ask us?” said Marianne, as soon as they were
gone. “The rent of this cottage is said to be low; but we have it on very
hard terms, if we are to dine at the park whenever any one is staying
either with them, or with us.”
“They mean no less to be civil and kind to us now,” said Elinor, “by
these frequent invitations, than by those which we received from them a
few weeks ago. The alteration is not in them, if their parties are grown
tedious and dull. We must look for the change elsewhere.”
Chapter 20
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JANE AUSTEN
“Ah, well! there is not much difference. I never was at his house; but
they say it is a sweet pretty place.”
“As vile a spot as I ever saw in my life,” said Mr. Palmer.
Marianne remained perfectly silent, though her countenance be-
trayed her interest in what was said.
“Is it very ugly?” continued Mrs. Palmer—“then it must be some
other place that is so pretty I suppose.”
When they were seated in the dining room, Sir John observed with
regret that they were only eight all together.
“My dear,” said he to his lady, “it is very provoking that we should
be so few. Why did not you ask the Gilberts to come to us today?”
“Did not I tell you, Sir John, when you spoke to me about it before,
that it could not be done? They dined with us last.”
“You and I, Sir John,” said Mrs. Jennings, “should not stand upon
such ceremony.”
“Then you would be very ill-bred,” cried Mr. Palmer.
“My love you contradict every body,” said his wife with her usual
laugh. “Do you know that you are quite rude?”
“I did not know I contradicted any body in calling your mother ill-
bred.”
“Ay, you may abuse me as you please,” said the good-natured old
lady, “you have taken Charlotte off my hands, and cannot give her back
again. So there I have the whip hand of you.”
Charlotte laughed heartily to think that her husband could not get
rid of her; and exultingly said, she did not care how cross he was to her,
as they must live together. It was impossible for any one to be more thor-
oughly good-natured, or more determined to be happy than Mrs. Palmer.
The studied indifference, insolence, and discontent of her husband gave
her no pain; and when he scolded or abused her, she was highly diverted.
“Mr. Palmer is so droll!” said she, in a whisper, to Elinor. “He is
always out of humour.”
Elinor was not inclined, after a little observation, to give him credit
for being so genuinely and unaffectedly ill-natured or ill-bred as he
wished to appear. His temper might perhaps be a little soured by finding,
like many others of his sex, that through some unaccountable bias in
favour of beauty, he was the husband of a very silly woman,—but she
knew that this kind of blunder was too common for any sensible man to
be lastingly hurt by it.—It was rather a wish of distinction, she believed,
which produced his contemptuous treatment of every body, and his gen-
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eral abuse of every thing before him. It was the desire of appearing
superior to other people. The motive was too common to be wondered
at; but the means, however they might succeed by establishing his superi-
ority in ill-breeding, were not likely to attach any one to him except his
wife.
“Oh, my dear Miss Dashwood,” said Mrs. Palmer soon afterwards,
“I have got such a favour to ask of you and your sister. Will you come
and spend some time at Cleveland this Christmas? Now, pray do,—and
come while the Westons are with us. You cannot think how happy I
shall be! It will be quite delightful!—My love,” applying to her husband,
“don’t you long to have the Miss Dashwoods come to Cleveland?”
“Certainly,” he replied, with a sneer—“I came into Devonshire with
no other view.”
“There now,”—said his lady, “you see Mr. Palmer expects you; so
you cannot refuse to come.”
They both eagerly and resolutely declined her invitation.
“But indeed you must and shall come. I am sure you will like it of all
things. The Westons will be with us, and it will be quite delightful. You
cannot think what a sweet place Cleveland is; and we are so gay now,
for Mr. Palmer is always going about the country canvassing against
the election; and so many people came to dine with us that I never saw
before, it is quite charming! But, poor fellow! it is very fatiguing to him!
for he is forced to make every body like him.”
Elinor could hardly keep her countenance as she assented to the hard-
ship of such an obligation.
“How charming it will be,” said Charlotte, “when he is in
Parliament!—won’t it? How I shall laugh! It will be so ridiculous to
see all his letters directed to him with an M.P.—But do you know, he
says, he will never frank for me? He declares he won’t. Don’t you, Mr.
Palmer?”
Mr. Palmer took no notice of her.
“He cannot bear writing, you know,” she continued—“he says it is
quite shocking.”
“No,” said he, “I never said any thing so irrational. Don’t palm all
your abuses of languages upon me.”
“There now; you see how droll he is. This is always the way with
him! Sometimes he won’t speak to me for half a day together, and then
he comes out with something so droll—all about any thing in the world.”
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She surprised Elinor very much as they returned into the drawing-
room, by asking her whether she did not like Mr. Palmer excessively.
“Certainly,” said Elinor; “he seems very agreeable.”
“Well—I am so glad you do. I thought you would, he is so pleasant;
and Mr. Palmer is excessively pleased with you and your sisters I can tell
you, and you can’t think how disappointed he will be if you don’t come
to Cleveland.—I can’t imagine why you should object to it.”
Elinor was again obliged to decline her invitation; and by changing
the subject, put a stop to her entreaties. She thought it probable that as
they lived in the same county, Mrs. Palmer might be able to give some
more particular account of Willoughby’s general character, than could
be gathered from the Middletons’ partial acquaintance with him; and
she was eager to gain from any one, such a confirmation of his merits
as might remove the possibility of fear from Marianne. She began by
inquiring if they saw much of Mr. Willoughby at Cleveland, and whether
they were intimately acquainted with him.
“Oh dear, yes; I know him extremely well,” replied Mrs. Palmer;—
“Not that I ever spoke to him, indeed; but I have seen him for ever in
town. Somehow or other I never happened to be staying at Barton while
he was at Allenham. Mama saw him here once before;—but I was with
my uncle at Weymouth. However, I dare say we should have seen a
great deal of him in Somersetshire, if it had not happened very unluckily
that we should never have been in the country together. He is very little
at Combe, I believe; but if he were ever so much there, I do not think
Mr. Palmer would visit him, for he is in the opposition, you know, and
besides it is such a way off. I know why you inquire about him, very
well; your sister is to marry him. I am monstrous glad of it, for then I
shall have her for a neighbour you know.”
“Upon my word,” replied Elinor, “you know much more of the mat-
ter than I do, if you have any reason to expect such a match.”
“Don’t pretend to deny it, because you know it is what every body
talks of. I assure you I heard of it in my way through town.”
“My dear Mrs. Palmer!”
“Upon my honour I did.—I met Colonel Brandon Monday morning
in Bond-street, just before we left town, and he told me of it directly.”
“You surprise me very much. Colonel Brandon tell you of it! Surely
you must be mistaken. To give such intelligence to a person who could
not be interested in it, even if it were true, is not what I should expect
Colonel Brandon to do.”
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“But I do assure you it was so, for all that, and I will tell you how
it happened. When we met him, he turned back and walked with us;
and so we began talking of my brother and sister, and one thing and
another, and I said to him, ‘So, Colonel, there is a new family come
to Barton cottage, I hear, and mama sends me word they are very pretty,
and that one of them is going to be married to Mr. Willoughby of Combe
Magna. Is it true, pray? for of course you must know, as you have been
in Devonshire so lately.’ ”
“And what did the Colonel say?”
“Oh—he did not say much; but he looked as if he knew it to be true,
so from that moment I set it down as certain. It will be quite delightful,
I declare! When is it to take place?”
“Mr. Brandon was very well I hope?”
“Oh! yes, quite well; and so full of your praises, he did nothing but
say fine things of you.”
“I am flattered by his commendation. He seems an excellent man;
and I think him uncommonly pleasing.”
“So do I.—He is such a charming man, that it is quite a pity he should
be so grave and so dull. Mamma says he was in love with your sister
too.—I assure you it was a great compliment if he was, for he hardly
ever falls in love with any body.”
“Is Mr. Willoughby much known in your part of Somersetshire?”
said Elinor.
“Oh! yes, extremely well; that is, I do not believe many people are
acquainted with him, because Combe Magna is so far off; but they all
think him extremely agreeable I assure you. Nobody is more liked than
Mr. Willoughby wherever he goes, and so you may tell your sister. She
is a monstrous lucky girl to get him, upon my honour; not but that he
is much more lucky in getting her, because she is so very handsome and
agreeable, that nothing can be good enough for her. However, I don’t
think her hardly at all handsomer than you, I assure you; for I think you
both excessively pretty, and so does Mr. Palmer too I am sure, though
we could not get him to own it last night.”
Mrs. Palmer’s information respecting Willoughby was not very ma-
terial; but any testimony in his favour, however small, was pleasing to
her.
“I am so glad we are got acquainted at last,” continued Charlotte.—
“And now I hope we shall always be great friends. You can’t think how
much I longed to see you! It is so delightful that you should live at the
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cottage! Nothing can be like it, to be sure! And I am so glad your sister
is going to be well married! I hope you will be a great deal at Combe
Magna. It is a sweet place, by all accounts.”
“You have been long acquainted with Colonel Brandon, have not
you?”
“Yes, a great while; ever since my sister married.—He was a particu-
lar friend of Sir John’s. I believe,” she added in a low voice, “he would
have been very glad to have had me, if he could. Sir John and Lady
Middleton wished it very much. But mama did not think the match
good enough for me, otherwise Sir John would have mentioned it to the
Colonel, and we should have been married immediately.”
“Did not Colonel Brandon know of Sir John’s proposal to your
mother before it was made? Had he never owned his affection to your-
self?”
“Oh, no; but if mama had not objected to it, I dare say he would
have liked it of all things. He had not seen me then above twice, for
it was before I left school. However, I am much happier as I am. Mr.
Palmer is the kind of man I like.”
Chapter 21
T HE PALMERS returned to Cleveland the next day, and the two fam-
ilies at Barton were again left to entertain each other. But this did not
last long; Elinor had hardly got their last visitors out of her head, had
hardly done wondering at Charlotte’s being so happy without a cause,
at Mr. Palmer’s acting so simply, with good abilities, and at the strange
unsuitableness which often existed between husband and wife, before Sir
John’s and Mrs. Jennings’s active zeal in the cause of society, procured
her some other new acquaintance to see and observe.
In a morning’s excursion to Exeter, they had met with two young
ladies, whom Mrs. Jennings had the satisfaction of discovering to be her
relations, and this was enough for Sir John to invite them directly to the
park, as soon as their present engagements at Exeter were over. Their
engagements at Exeter instantly gave way before such an invitation, and
Lady Middleton was thrown into no little alarm on the return of Sir John,
by hearing that she was very soon to receive a visit from two girls whom
she had never seen in her life, and of whose elegance,—whose tolerable
gentility even, she could have no proof; for the assurances of her hus-
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band and mother on that subject went for nothing at all. Their being her
relations too made it so much the worse; and Mrs. Jennings’s attempts at
consolation were therefore unfortunately founded, when she advised her
daughter not to care about their being so fashionable; because they were
all cousins and must put up with one another. As it was impossible, how-
ever, now to prevent their coming, Lady Middleton resigned herself to
the idea of it, with all the philosophy of a well-bred woman, contenting
herself with merely giving her husband a gentle reprimand on the subject
five or six times every day.
The young ladies arrived: their appearance was by no means ungen-
teel or unfashionable. Their dress was very smart, their manners very
civil, they were delighted with the house, and in raptures with the furni-
ture, and they happened to be so doatingly fond of children that Lady
Middleton’s good opinion was engaged in their favour before they had
been an hour at the Park. She declared them to be very agreeable girls
indeed, which for her ladyship was enthusiastic admiration. Sir John’s
confidence in his own judgment rose with this animated praise, and he
set off directly for the cottage to tell the Miss Dashwoods of the Miss
Steeles’ arrival, and to assure them of their being the sweetest girls in the
world. From such commendation as this, however, there was not much
to be learned; Elinor well knew that the sweetest girls in the world were
to be met with in every part of England, under every possible variation
of form, face, temper and understanding. Sir John wanted the whole
family to walk to the Park directly and look at his guests. Benevolent,
philanthropic man! It was painful to him even to keep a third cousin to
himself.
“Do come now,” said he—“pray come—you must come—I declare
you shall come—You can’t think how you will like them. Lucy is mon-
strous pretty, and so good humoured and agreeable! The children are all
hanging about her already, as if she was an old acquaintance. And they
both long to see you of all things, for they have heard at Exeter that you
are the most beautiful creatures in the world; and I have told them it is
all very true, and a great deal more. You will be delighted with them I
am sure. They have brought the whole coach full of playthings for the
children. How can you be so cross as not to come? Why they are your
cousins, you know, after a fashion. You are my cousins, and they are my
wife’s, so you must be related.”
But Sir John could not prevail. He could only obtain a promise of
their calling at the Park within a day or two, and then left them in amaze-
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ment at their indifference, to walk home and boast anew of their attrac-
tions to the Miss Steeles, as he had been already boasting of the Miss
Steeles to them.
When their promised visit to the Park and consequent introduction
to these young ladies took place, they found in the appearance of the
eldest, who was nearly thirty, with a very plain and not a sensible face,
nothing to admire; but in the other, who was not more than two or three
and twenty, they acknowledged considerable beauty; her features were
pretty, and she had a sharp quick eye, and a smartness of air, which
though it did not give actual elegance or grace, gave distinction to her
person.—Their manners were particularly civil, and Elinor soon allowed
them credit for some kind of sense, when she saw with what constant and
judicious attention they were making themselves agreeable to Lady Mid-
dleton. With her children they were in continual raptures, extolling their
beauty, courting their notice, and humouring their whims; and such of
their time as could be spared from the importunate demands which this
politeness made on it, was spent in admiration of whatever her ladyship
was doing, if she happened to be doing any thing, or in taking patterns
of some elegant new dress, in which her appearance the day before had
thrown them into unceasing delight. Fortunately for those who pay their
court through such foibles, a fond mother, though, in pursuit of praise
for her children, the most rapacious of human beings, is likewise the
most credulous; her demands are exorbitant; but she will swallow any
thing; and the excessive affection and endurance of the Miss Steeles to-
wards her offspring were viewed therefore by Lady Middleton without
the smallest surprise or distrust. She saw with maternal complacency
all the impertinent encroachments and mischievous tricks to which her
cousins submitted. She saw their sashes untied, their hair pulled about
their ears, their work-bags searched, and their knives and scissors stolen
away, and felt no doubt of its being a reciprocal enjoyment. It suggested
no other surprise than that Elinor and Marianne should sit so compos-
edly by, without claiming a share in what was passing.
“John is in such spirits today!” said she, on his taking Miss Steeles’s
pocket handkerchief, and throwing it out of window—“He is full of
monkey tricks.”
And soon afterwards, on the second boy’s violently pinching one of
the same lady’s fingers, she fondly observed, “How playful William is!”
“And here is my sweet little Annamaria,” she added, tenderly caress-
ing a little girl of three years old, who had not made a noise for the last
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two minutes; “And she is always so gentle and quiet—Never was there
such a quiet little thing!”
But unfortunately in bestowing these embraces, a pin in her lady-
ship’s head dress slightly scratching the child’s neck, produced from this
pattern of gentleness such violent screams, as could hardly be outdone
by any creature professedly noisy. The mother’s consternation was ex-
cessive; but it could not surpass the alarm of the Miss Steeles, and every
thing was done by all three, in so critical an emergency, which affection
could suggest as likely to assuage the agonies of the little sufferer. She
was seated in her mother’s lap, covered with kisses, her wound bathed
with lavender-water, by one of the Miss Steeles, who was on her knees to
attend her, and her mouth stuffed with sugar plums by the other. With
such a reward for her tears, the child was too wise to cease crying. She
still screamed and sobbed lustily, kicked her two brothers for offering to
touch her, and all their united soothings were ineffectual till Lady Mid-
dleton luckily remembering that in a scene of similar distress last week,
some apricot marmalade had been successfully applied for a bruised tem-
ple, the same remedy was eagerly proposed for this unfortunate scratch,
and a slight intermission of screams in the young lady on hearing it, gave
them reason to hope that it would not be rejected.—She was carried out
of the room therefore in her mother’s arms, in quest of this medicine,
and as the two boys chose to follow, though earnestly entreated by their
mother to stay behind, the four young ladies were left in a quietness
which the room had not known for many hours.
“Poor little creatures!” said Miss Steele, as soon as they were gone.
“It might have been a very sad accident.”
“Yet I hardly know how,” cried Marianne, “unless it had been under
totally different circumstances. But this is the usual way of heightening
alarm, where there is nothing to be alarmed at in reality.”
“What a sweet woman Lady Middleton is!” said Lucy Steele.
Marianne was silent; it was impossible for her to say what she did not
feel, however trivial the occasion; and upon Elinor therefore the whole
task of telling lies when politeness required it, always fell. She did her
best when thus called on, by speaking of Lady Middleton with more
warmth than she felt, though with far less than Miss Lucy.
“And Sir John too,” cried the elder sister, “what a charming man he
is!”
Here too, Miss Dashwood’s commendation, being only simple and
just, came in without any eclat. She merely observed that he was per-
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to Mr. Simpson, you know, and yet if you do but meet him of a morning,
he is not fit to be seen.—I suppose your brother was quite a beau, Miss
Dashwood, before he married, as he was so rich?”
“Upon my word,” replied Elinor, “I cannot tell you, for I do not
perfectly comprehend the meaning of the word. But this I can say, that
if he ever was a beau before he married, he is one still for there is not the
smallest alteration in him.”
“Oh! dear! one never thinks of married men’s being beaux—they
have something else to do.”
“Lord! Anne,” cried her sister, “you can talk of nothing but beaux;—
you will make Miss Dashwood believe you think of nothing else.” And
then to turn the discourse, she began admiring the house and the furni-
ture.
This specimen of the Miss Steeles was enough. The vulgar freedom
and folly of the eldest left her no recommendation, and as Elinor was not
blinded by the beauty, or the shrewd look of the youngest, to her want
of real elegance and artlessness, she left the house without any wish of
knowing them better.
Not so the Miss Steeles.—They came from Exeter, well provided with
admiration for the use of Sir John Middleton, his family, and all his rela-
tions, and no niggardly proportion was now dealt out to his fair cousins,
whom they declared to be the most beautiful, elegant, accomplished, and
agreeable girls they had ever beheld, and with whom they were partic-
ularly anxious to be better acquainted.—And to be better acquainted
therefore, Elinor soon found was their inevitable lot, for as Sir John was
entirely on the side of the Miss Steeles, their party would be too strong
for opposition, and that kind of intimacy must be submitted to, which
consists of sitting an hour or two together in the same room almost every
day. Sir John could do no more; but he did not know that any more was
required: to be together was, in his opinion, to be intimate, and while his
continual schemes for their meeting were effectual, he had not a doubt
of their being established friends.
To do him justice, he did every thing in his power to promote their
unreserve, by making the Miss Steeles acquainted with whatever he knew
or supposed of his cousins’ situations in the most delicate particulars,—
and Elinor had not seen them more than twice, before the eldest of them
wished her joy on her sister’s having been so lucky as to make a conquest
of a very smart beau since she came to Barton.
“ ’Twill be a fine thing to have her married so young to be sure,” said
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Ferrars’s name by Miss Steele when alluded to, or even openly mentioned
by Sir John.
Chapter 22
M ARIANNE , who had never much toleration for any thing like im-
pertinence, vulgarity, inferiority of parts, or even difference of taste from
herself, was at this time particularly ill-disposed, from the state of her
spirits, to be pleased with the Miss Steeles, or to encourage their ad-
vances; and to the invariable coldness of her behaviour towards them,
which checked every endeavour at intimacy on their side, Elinor princi-
pally attributed that preference of herself which soon became evident in
the manners of both, but especially of Lucy, who missed no opportunity
of engaging her in conversation, or of striving to improve their acquain-
tance by an easy and frank communication of her sentiments.
Lucy was naturally clever; her remarks were often just and amus-
ing; and as a companion for half an hour Elinor frequently found her
agreeable; but her powers had received no aid from education: she was
ignorant and illiterate; and her deficiency of all mental improvement,
her want of information in the most common particulars, could not be
concealed from Miss Dashwood, in spite of her constant endeavour to
appear to advantage. Elinor saw, and pitied her for, the neglect of abil-
ities which education might have rendered so respectable; but she saw,
with less tenderness of feeling, the thorough want of delicacy, of recti-
tude, and integrity of mind, which her attentions, her assiduities, her
flatteries at the Park betrayed; and she could have no lasting satisfac-
tion in the company of a person who joined insincerity with ignorance;
whose want of instruction prevented their meeting in conversation on
terms of equality, and whose conduct toward others made every shew of
attention and deference towards herself perfectly valueless.
“You will think my question an odd one, I dare say,” said Lucy to her
one day, as they were walking together from the park to the cottage—
“but pray, are you personally acquainted with your sister-in-law’s mother,
Mrs. Ferrars?”
Elinor did think the question a very odd one, and her countenance
expressed it, as she answered that she had never seen Mrs. Ferrars.
“Indeed!” replied Lucy; “I wonder at that, for I thought you must
have seen her at Norland sometimes. Then, perhaps, you cannot tell me
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Chapter 23
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it might once have been, she could not believe it such at present. His
affection was all her own. She could not be deceived in that. Her mother,
sisters, Fanny, all had been conscious of his regard for her at Norland; it
was not an illusion of her own vanity. He certainly loved her. What a
softener of the heart was this persuasion! How much could it not tempt
her to forgive! He had been blamable, highly blamable, in remaining
at Norland after he first felt her influence over him to be more than it
ought to be. In that, he could not be defended; but if he had injured
her, how much more had he injured himself; if her case were pitiable,
his was hopeless. His imprudence had made her miserable for a while;
but it seemed to have deprived himself of all chance of ever being oth-
erwise. She might in time regain tranquillity; but he, what had he to
look forward to? Could he ever be tolerably happy with Lucy Steele;
could he, were his affection for herself out of the question, with his in-
tegrity, his delicacy, and well-informed mind, be satisfied with a wife like
her—illiterate, artful, and selfish?
The youthful infatuation of nineteen would naturally blind him to
every thing but her beauty and good nature; but the four succeeding
years—years, which if rationally spent, give such improvement to the
understanding, must have opened his eyes to her defects of education,
while the same period of time, spent on her side in inferior society and
more frivolous pursuits, had perhaps robbed her of that simplicity which
might once have given an interesting character to her beauty.
If in the supposition of his seeking to marry herself, his difficulties
from his mother had seemed great, how much greater were they now
likely to be, when the object of his engagement was undoubtedly infe-
rior in connections, and probably inferior in fortune to herself. These
difficulties, indeed, with a heart so alienated from Lucy, might not press
very hard upon his patience; but melancholy was the state of the person
by whom the expectation of family opposition and unkindness, could be
felt as a relief!
As these considerations occurred to her in painful succession, she
wept for him, more than for herself. Supported by the conviction of hav-
ing done nothing to merit her present unhappiness, and consoled by the
belief that Edward had done nothing to forfeit her esteem, she thought
she could even now, under the first smart of the heavy blow, command
herself enough to guard every suspicion of the truth from her mother
and sisters. And so well was she able to answer her own expectations,
that when she joined them at dinner only two hours after she had first
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suffered the extinction of all her dearest hopes, no one would have sup-
posed from the appearance of the sisters, that Elinor was mourning in
secret over obstacles which must divide her for ever from the object of
her love, and that Marianne was internally dwelling on the perfections of
a man, of whose whole heart she felt thoroughly possessed, and whom
she expected to see in every carriage which drove near their house.
The necessity of concealing from her mother and Marianne, what
had been entrusted in confidence to herself, though it obliged her to
unceasing exertion, was no aggravation of Elinor’s distress. On the con-
trary it was a relief to her, to be spared the communication of what
would give such affliction to them, and to be saved likewise from hear-
ing that condemnation of Edward, which would probably flow from the
excess of their partial affection for herself, and which was more than she
felt equal to support.
From their counsel, or their conversation, she knew she could receive
no assistance, their tenderness and sorrow must add to her distress, while
her self-command would neither receive encouragement from their ex-
ample nor from their praise. She was stronger alone, and her own good
sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her ap-
pearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as with regrets so poignant and
so fresh, it was possible for them to be.
Much as she had suffered from her first conversation with Lucy on
the subject, she soon felt an earnest wish of renewing it; and this for
more reasons than one. She wanted to hear many particulars of their en-
gagement repeated again, she wanted more clearly to understand what
Lucy really felt for Edward, whether there were any sincerity in her decla-
ration of tender regard for him, and she particularly wanted to convince
Lucy, by her readiness to enter on the matter again, and her calmness
in conversing on it, that she was no otherwise interested in it than as
a friend, which she very much feared her involuntary agitation, in their
morning discourse, must have left at least doubtful. That Lucy was dis-
posed to be jealous of her appeared very probable: it was plain that
Edward had always spoken highly in her praise, not merely from Lucy’s
assertion, but from her venturing to trust her on so short a personal ac-
quaintance, with a secret so confessedly and evidently important. And
even Sir John’s joking intelligence must have had some weight. But in-
deed, while Elinor remained so well assured within herself of being really
beloved by Edward, it required no other consideration of probabilities
to make it natural that Lucy should be jealous; and that she was so, her
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very confidence was a proof. What other reason for the disclosure of the
affair could there be, but that Elinor might be informed by it of Lucy’s
superior claims on Edward, and be taught to avoid him in future? She
had little difficulty in understanding thus much of her rival’s intentions,
and while she was firmly resolved to act by her as every principle of hon-
our and honesty directed, to combat her own affection for Edward and
to see him as little as possible; she could not deny herself the comfort of
endeavouring to convince Lucy that her heart was unwounded. And as
she could now have nothing more painful to hear on the subject than had
already been told, she did not mistrust her own ability of going through
a repetition of particulars with composure.
But it was not immediately that an opportunity of doing so could
be commanded, though Lucy was as well disposed as herself to take ad-
vantage of any that occurred; for the weather was not often fine enough
to allow of their joining in a walk, where they might most easily sepa-
rate themselves from the others; and though they met at least every other
evening either at the park or cottage, and chiefly at the former, they could
not be supposed to meet for the sake of conversation. Such a thought
would never enter either Sir John or Lady Middleton’s head; and there-
fore very little leisure was ever given for a general chat, and none at all
for particular discourse. They met for the sake of eating, drinking, and
laughing together, playing at cards, or consequences, or any other game
that was sufficiently noisy.
One or two meetings of this kind had taken place, without afford-
ing Elinor any chance of engaging Lucy in private, when Sir John called
at the cottage one morning, to beg, in the name of charity, that they
would all dine with Lady Middleton that day, as he was obliged to attend
the club at Exeter, and she would otherwise be quite alone, except her
mother and the two Miss Steeles. Elinor, who foresaw a fairer opening
for the point she had in view, in such a party as this was likely to be, more
at liberty among themselves under the tranquil and well-bred direction
of Lady Middleton than when her husband united them together in one
noisy purpose, immediately accepted the invitation; Margaret, with her
mother’s permission, was equally compliant, and Marianne, though al-
ways unwilling to join any of their parties, was persuaded by her mother,
who could not bear to have her seclude herself from any chance of amuse-
ment, to go likewise.
The young ladies went, and Lady Middleton was happily preserved
from the frightful solitude which had threatened her. The insipidity of
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the meeting was exactly such as Elinor had expected; it produced not
one novelty of thought or expression, and nothing could be less inter-
esting than the whole of their discourse both in the dining parlour and
drawing room: to the latter, the children accompanied them, and while
they remained there, she was too well convinced of the impossibility of
engaging Lucy’s attention to attempt it. They quitted it only with the
removal of the tea-things. The card-table was then placed, and Elinor
began to wonder at herself for having ever entertained a hope of finding
time for conversation at the park. They all rose up in preparation for a
round game.
“I am glad,” said Lady Middleton to Lucy, “you are not going to
finish poor little Annamaria’s basket this evening; for I am sure it must
hurt your eyes to work filigree by candlelight. And we will make the
dear little love some amends for her disappointment to-morrow, and
then I hope she will not much mind it.”
This hint was enough, Lucy recollected herself instantly and replied,
“Indeed you are very much mistaken, Lady Middleton; I am only waiting
to know whether you can make your party without me, or I should have
been at my filigree already. I would not disappoint the little angel for all
the world: and if you want me at the card-table now, I am resolved to
finish the basket after supper.”
“You are very good, I hope it won’t hurt your eyes—will you ring the
bell for some working candles? My poor little girl would be sadly dis-
appointed, I know, if the basket was not finished tomorrow, for though
I told her it certainly would not, I am sure she depends upon having it
done.”
Lucy directly drew her work table near her and reseated herself with
an alacrity and cheerfulness which seemed to infer that she could taste
no greater delight than in making a filigree basket for a spoilt child.
Lady Middleton proposed a rubber of Casino to the others. No one
made any objection but Marianne, who with her usual inattention to
the forms of general civility, exclaimed, “Your Ladyship will have the
goodness to excuse me—you know I detest cards. I shall go to the piano-
forte; I have not touched it since it was tuned.” And without farther
ceremony, she turned away and walked to the instrument.
Lady Middleton looked as if she thanked heaven that she had never
made so rude a speech.
“Marianne can never keep long from that instrument you know,
ma’am,” said Elinor, endeavouring to smooth away the offence; “and
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I do not much wonder at it; for it is the very best toned piano-forte I
ever heard.”
The remaining five were now to draw their cards.
“Perhaps,” continued Elinor, “if I should happen to cut out, I may
be of some use to Miss Lucy Steele, in rolling her papers for her; and
there is so much still to be done to the basket, that it must be impossible
I think for her labour singly, to finish it this evening. I should like the
work exceedingly, if she would allow me a share in it.”
“Indeed I shall be very much obliged to you for your help,” cried
Lucy, “for I find there is more to be done to it than I thought there was;
and it would be a shocking thing to disappoint dear Annamaria after
all.”
“Oh! that would be terrible, indeed,” said Miss Steele—“Dear little
soul, how I do love her!”
“You are very kind,” said Lady Middleton to Elinor; “and as you
really like the work, perhaps you will be as well pleased not to cut in till
another rubber, or will you take your chance now?”
Elinor joyfully profited by the first of these proposals, and thus by
a little of that address which Marianne could never condescend to prac-
tise, gained her own end, and pleased Lady Middleton at the same time.
Lucy made room for her with ready attention, and the two fair rivals
were thus seated side by side at the same table, and, with the utmost har-
mony, engaged in forwarding the same work. The pianoforte at which
Marianne, wrapped up in her own music and her own thoughts, had by
this time forgotten that any body was in the room besides herself, was
luckily so near them that Miss Dashwood now judged she might safely,
under the shelter of its noise, introduce the interesting subject, without
any risk of being heard at the card-table.
Chapter 24
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“Offended me! How could you suppose so? Believe me,” and Elinor
spoke it with the truest sincerity, “nothing could be farther from my
intention than to give you such an idea. Could you have a motive for the
trust, that was not honourable and flattering to me?”
“And yet I do assure you,” replied Lucy, her little sharp eyes full of
meaning, “there seemed to me to be a coldness and displeasure in your
manner that made me quite uncomfortable. I felt sure that you was
angry with me; and have been quarrelling with myself ever since, for
having took such a liberty as to trouble you with my affairs. But I am
very glad to find it was only my own fancy, and that you really do not
blame me. If you knew what a consolation it was to me to relieve my
heart speaking to you of what I am always thinking of every moment of
my life, your compassion would make you overlook every thing else I
am sure.”
“Indeed, I can easily believe that it was a very great relief to you, to
acknowledge your situation to me, and be assured that you shall never
have reason to repent it. Your case is a very unfortunate one; you seem
to me to be surrounded with difficulties, and you will have need of all
your mutual affection to support you under them. Mr. Ferrars, I believe,
is entirely dependent on his mother.”
“He has only two thousand pounds of his own; it would be madness
to marry upon that, though for my own part, I could give up every
prospect of more without a sigh. I have been always used to a very
small income, and could struggle with any poverty for him; but I love
him too well to be the selfish means of robbing him, perhaps, of all that
his mother might give him if he married to please her. We must wait, it
may be for many years. With almost every other man in the world, it
would be an alarming prospect; but Edward’s affection and constancy
nothing can deprive me of I know.”
“That conviction must be every thing to you; and he is undoubtedly
supported by the same trust in your’s. If the strength of your recipro-
cal attachment had failed, as between many people, and under many
circumstances it naturally would during a four years’ engagement, your
situation would have been pitiable, indeed.”
Lucy here looked up; but Elinor was careful in guarding her coun-
tenance from every expression that could give her words a suspicious
tendency.
“Edward’s love for me,” said Lucy, “has been pretty well put to the
test, by our long, very long absence since we were first engaged, and it
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of your wishes.”
“Indeed you wrong me,” replied Lucy, with great solemnity; “I know
nobody of whose judgment I think so highly as I do of yours; and I do re-
ally believe, that if you was to say to me, ‘I advise you by all means to put
an end to your engagement with Edward Ferrars, it will be more for the
happiness of both of you,’ I should resolve upon doing it immediately.”
Elinor blushed for the insincerity of Edward’s future wife, and replied,
“This compliment would effectually frighten me from giving any opinion
on the subject had I formed one. It raises my influence much too high;
the power of dividing two people so tenderly attached is too much for
an indifferent person.”
“ ’Tis because you are an indifferent person,” said Lucy, with some
pique, and laying a particular stress on those words, “that your judgment
might justly have such weight with me. If you could be supposed to be
biased in any respect by your own feelings, your opinion would not be
worth having.”
Elinor thought it wisest to make no answer to this, lest they might
provoke each other to an unsuitable increase of ease and unreserve; and
was even partly determined never to mention the subject again. Another
pause therefore of many minutes’ duration, succeeded this speech, and
Lucy was still the first to end it.
“Shall you be in town this winter, Miss Dashwood?” said she with
all her accustomary complacency.
“Certainly not.”
“I am sorry for that,” returned the other, while her eyes brightened
at the information, “it would have gave me such pleasure to meet you
there! But I dare say you will go for all that. To be sure, your brother
and sister will ask you to come to them.”
“It will not be in my power to accept their invitation if they do.”
“How unlucky that is! I had quite depended upon meeting you there.
Anne and me are to go the latter end of January to some relations who
have been wanting us to visit them these several years! But I only go
for the sake of seeing Edward. He will be there in February, otherwise
London would have no charms for me; I have not spirits for it.”
Elinor was soon called to the card-table by the conclusion of the first
rubber, and the confidential discourse of the two ladies was therefore at
an end, to which both of them submitted without any reluctance, for
nothing had been said on either side to make them dislike each other less
than they had done before; and Elinor sat down to the card table with
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the melancholy persuasion that Edward was not only without affection
for the person who was to be his wife; but that he had not even the
chance of being tolerably happy in marriage, which sincere affection on
her side would have given, for self-interest alone could induce a woman
to keep a man to an engagement, of which she seemed so thoroughly
aware that he was weary.
From this time the subject was never revived by Elinor, and when
entered on by Lucy, who seldom missed an opportunity of introducing it,
and was particularly careful to inform her confidante, of her happiness
whenever she received a letter from Edward, it was treated by the former
with calmness and caution, and dismissed as soon as civility would allow;
for she felt such conversations to be an indulgence which Lucy did not
deserve, and which were dangerous to herself.
The visit of the Miss Steeles at Barton Park was lengthened far be-
yond what the first invitation implied. Their favour increased; they could
not be spared; Sir John would not hear of their going; and in spite of
their numerous and long arranged engagements in Exeter, in spite of the
absolute necessity of returning to fulfill them immediately, which was in
full force at the end of every week, they were prevailed on to stay nearly
two months at the park, and to assist in the due celebration of that festi-
val which requires a more than ordinary share of private balls and large
dinners to proclaim its importance.
Chapter 25
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Mrs. Jennings received the refusal with some surprise, and repeated her
invitation immediately.
“Oh, Lord! I am sure your mother can spare you very well, and I do
beg you will favour me with your company, for I’ve quite set my heart
upon it. Don’t fancy that you will be any inconvenience to me, for I
shan’t put myself at all out of my way for you. It will only be sending
Betty by the coach, and I hope I can afford that. We three shall be able
to go very well in my chaise; and when we are in town, if you do not
like to go wherever I do, well and good, you may always go with one of
my daughters. I am sure your mother will not object to it; for I have had
such good luck in getting my own children off my hands that she will
think me a very fit person to have the charge of you; and if I don’t get
one of you at least well married before I have done with you, it shall not
be my fault. I shall speak a good word for you to all the young men, you
may depend upon it.”
“I have a notion,” said Sir John, “that Miss Marianne would not
object to such a scheme, if her elder sister would come into it. It is
very hard indeed that she should not have a little pleasure, because Miss
Dashwood does not wish it. So I would advise you two, to set off for
town, when you are tired of Barton, without saying a word to Miss
Dashwood about it.”
“Nay,” cried Mrs. Jennings, “I am sure I shall be monstrous glad of
Miss Marianne’s company, whether Miss Dashwood will go or not, only
the more the merrier say I, and I thought it would be more comfortable
for them to be together; because, if they got tired of me, they might talk
to one another, and laugh at my old ways behind my back. But one or
the other, if not both of them, I must have. Lord bless me! how do you
think I can live poking by myself, I who have been always used till this
winter to have Charlotte with me. Come, Miss Marianne, let us strike
hands upon the bargain, and if Miss Dashwood will change her mind by
and bye, why so much the better.”
“I thank you, ma’am, sincerely thank you,” said Marianne, with
warmth: “your invitation has insured my gratitude for ever, and it would
give me such happiness, yes, almost the greatest happiness I am capable
of, to be able to accept it. But my mother, my dearest, kindest mother,—I
feel the justice of what Elinor has urged, and if she were to be made less
happy, less comfortable by our absence—Oh! no, nothing should tempt
me to leave her. It should not, must not be a struggle.”
Mrs. Jennings repeated her assurance that Mrs. Dashwood could
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spare them perfectly well; and Elinor, who now understood her sister,
and saw to what indifference to almost every thing else she was carried
by her eagerness to be with Willoughby again, made no farther direct
opposition to the plan, and merely referred it to her mother’s decision,
from whom however she scarcely expected to receive any support in
her endeavour to prevent a visit, which she could not approve of for
Marianne, and which on her own account she had particular reasons
to avoid. Whatever Marianne was desirous of, her mother would be
eager to promote—she could not expect to influence the latter to cau-
tiousness of conduct in an affair respecting which she had never been
able to inspire her with distrust; and she dared not explain the motive of
her own disinclination for going to London. That Marianne, fastidious
as she was, thoroughly acquainted with Mrs. Jennings’ manners, and in-
variably disgusted by them, should overlook every inconvenience of that
kind, should disregard whatever must be most wounding to her irritable
feelings, in her pursuit of one object, was such a proof, so strong, so full,
of the importance of that object to her, as Elinor, in spite of all that had
passed, was not prepared to witness.
On being informed of the invitation, Mrs. Dashwood, persuaded that
such an excursion would be productive of much amusement to both her
daughters, and perceiving through all her affectionate attention to her-
self, how much the heart of Marianne was in it, would not hear of their
declining the offer upon her account; insisted on their both accepting it
directly; and then began to foresee, with her usual cheerfulness, a variety
of advantages that would accrue to them all, from this separation.
“I am delighted with the plan,” she cried, “it is exactly what I could
wish. Margaret and I shall be as much benefited by it as yourselves.
When you and the Middletons are gone, we shall go on so quietly and
happily together with our books and our music! You will find Margaret
so improved when you come back again! I have a little plan of alteration
for your bedrooms too, which may now be performed without any incon-
venience to any one. It is very right that you should go to town; I would
have every young woman of your condition in life acquainted with the
manners and amusements of London. You will be under the care of a
motherly good sort of woman, of whose kindness to you I can have no
doubt. And in all probability you will see your brother, and whatever
may be his faults, or the faults of his wife, when I consider whose son he
is, I cannot bear to have you so wholly estranged from each other.”
“Though with your usual anxiety for our happiness,” said Elinor,
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“you have been obviating every impediment to the present scheme which
occurred to you, there is still one objection which, in my opinion, cannot
be so easily removed.”
Marianne’s countenance sunk.
“And what,” said Mrs. Dashwood, “is my dear prudent Elinor going
to suggest? What formidable obstacle is she now to bring forward? Do
let me hear a word about the expense of it.”
“My objection is this; though I think very well of Mrs. Jennings’s
heart, she is not a woman whose society can afford us pleasure, or whose
protection will give us consequence.”
“That is very true,” replied her mother, “but of her society, separately
from that of other people, you will scarcely have any thing at all, and
you will almost always appear in public with Lady Middleton.”
“If Elinor is frightened away by her dislike of Mrs. Jennings,” said
Marianne, “at least it need not prevent my accepting her invitation. I
have no such scruples, and I am sure I could put up with every unpleas-
antness of that kind with very little effort.”
Elinor could not help smiling at this display of indifference towards
the manners of a person, to whom she had often had difficulty in persuad-
ing Marianne to behave with tolerable politeness; and resolved within
herself, that if her sister persisted in going, she would go likewise, as she
did not think it proper that Marianne should be left to the sole guidance
of her own judgment, or that Mrs. Jennings should be abandoned to the
mercy of Marianne for all the comfort of her domestic hours. To this
determination she was the more easily reconciled, by recollecting that
Edward Ferrars, by Lucy’s account, was not to be in town before Febru-
ary; and that their visit, without any unreasonable abridgement, might
be previously finished.
“I will have you both go,” said Mrs. Dashwood; “these objections
are nonsensical. You will have much pleasure in being in London, and
especially in being together; and if Elinor would ever condescend to an-
ticipate enjoyment, she would foresee it there from a variety of sources;
she would, perhaps, expect some from improving her acquaintance with
her sister-in-law’s family.”
Elinor had often wished for an opportunity of attempting to weaken
her mother’s dependence on the attachment of Edward and herself, that
the shock might be less when the whole truth were revealed, and now on
this attack, though almost hopeless of success, she forced herself to begin
her design by saying, as calmly as she could, “I like Edward Ferrars very
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much, and shall always be glad to see him; but as to the rest of the family,
it is a matter of perfect indifference to me, whether I am ever known to
them or not.”
Mrs. Dashwood smiled, and said nothing. Marianne lifted up her
eyes in astonishment, and Elinor conjectured that she might as well have
held her tongue.
After very little farther discourse, it was finally settled that the invi-
tation should be fully accepted. Mrs. Jennings received the information
with a great deal of joy, and many assurances of kindness and care; nor
was it a matter of pleasure merely to her. Sir John was delighted; for to
a man, whose prevailing anxiety was the dread of being alone, the acqui-
sition of two, to the number of inhabitants in London, was something.
Even Lady Middleton took the trouble of being delighted, which was
putting herself rather out of her way; and as for the Miss Steeles, espe-
cially Lucy, they had never been so happy in their lives as this intelligence
made them.
Elinor submitted to the arrangement which counteracted her wishes
with less reluctance than she had expected to feel. With regard to herself,
it was now a matter of unconcern whether she went to town or not, and
when she saw her mother so thoroughly pleased with the plan, and her
sister exhilarated by it in look, voice, and manner, restored to all her
usual animation, and elevated to more than her usual gaiety, she could
not be dissatisfied with the cause, and would hardly allow herself to
distrust the consequence.
Marianne’s joy was almost a degree beyond happiness, so great was
the perturbation of her spirits and her impatience to be gone. Her un-
willingness to quit her mother was her only restorative to calmness; and
at the moment of parting her grief on that score was excessive. Her
mother’s affliction was hardly less, and Elinor was the only one of the
three, who seemed to consider the separation as any thing short of eter-
nal.
Their departure took place in the first week in January. The Middle-
tons were to follow in about a week. The Miss Steeles kept their station
at the park, and were to quit it only with the rest of the family.
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Chapter 26
E LINOR could not find herself in the carriage with Mrs. Jennings,
and beginning a journey to London under her protection, and as her
guest, without wondering at her own situation, so short had their ac-
quaintance with that lady been, so wholly unsuited were they in age and
disposition, and so many had been her objections against such a measure
only a few days before! But these objections had all, with that happy
ardour of youth which Marianne and her mother equally shared, been
overcome or overlooked; and Elinor, in spite of every occasional doubt
of Willoughby’s constancy, could not witness the rapture of delightful
expectation which filled the whole soul and beamed in the eyes of Mar-
ianne, without feeling how blank was her own prospect, how cheerless
her own state of mind in the comparison, and how gladly she would
engage in the solicitude of Marianne’s situation to have the same ani-
mating object in view, the same possibility of hope. A short, a very short
time however must now decide what Willoughby’s intentions were; in all
probability he was already in town. Marianne’s eagerness to be gone de-
clared her dependence on finding him there; and Elinor was resolved not
only upon gaining every new light as to his character which her own ob-
servation or the intelligence of others could give her, but likewise upon
watching his behaviour to her sister with such zealous attention, as to
ascertain what he was and what he meant, before many meetings had
taken place. Should the result of her observations be unfavourable, she
was determined at all events to open the eyes of her sister; should it be
otherwise, her exertions would be of a different nature—she must then
learn to avoid every selfish comparison, and banish every regret which
might lessen her satisfaction in the happiness of Marianne.
They were three days on their journey, and Marianne’s behaviour as
they travelled was a happy specimen of what future complaisance and
companionableness to Mrs. Jennings might be expected to be. She sat in
silence almost all the way, wrapt in her own meditations, and scarcely
ever voluntarily speaking, except when any object of picturesque beauty
within their view drew from her an exclamation of delight exclusively
addressed to her sister. To atone for this conduct therefore, Elinor took
immediate possession of the post of civility which she had assigned her-
self, behaved with the greatest attention to Mrs. Jennings, talked with
her, laughed with her, and listened to her whenever she could; and Mrs.
Jennings on her side treated them both with all possible kindness, was
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solicitous on every occasion for their ease and enjoyment, and only dis-
turbed that she could not make them choose their own dinners at the inn,
nor extort a confession of their preferring salmon to cod, or boiled fowls
to veal cutlets. They reached town by three o’clock the third day, glad
to be released, after such a journey, from the confinement of a carriage,
and ready to enjoy all the luxury of a good fire.
The house was handsome, and handsomely fitted up, and the young
ladies were immediately put in possession of a very comfortable apart-
ment. It had formerly been Charlotte’s, and over the mantelpiece still
hung a landscape in coloured silks of her performance, in proof of her
having spent seven years at a great school in town to some effect.
As dinner was not to be ready in less than two hours from their
arrival, Elinor determined to employ the interval in writing to her mother,
and sat down for that purpose. In a few moments Marianne did the same.
“I am writing home, Marianne,” said Elinor; “had not you better defer
your letter for a day or two?”
“I am not going to write to my mother,” replied Marianne, hastily,
and as if wishing to avoid any farther inquiry. Elinor said no more; it
immediately struck her that she must then be writing to Willoughby; and
the conclusion which as instantly followed was, that, however mysteri-
ously they might wish to conduct the affair, they must be engaged. This
conviction, though not entirely satisfactory, gave her pleasure, and she
continued her letter with greater alacrity. Marianne’s was finished in
a very few minutes; in length it could be no more than a note; it was
then folded up, sealed, and directed with eager rapidity. Elinor thought
she could distinguish a large W in the direction; and no sooner was it
complete than Marianne, ringing the bell, requested the footman who
answered it to get that letter conveyed for her to the two-penny post.
This decided the matter at once.
Her spirits still continued very high; but there was a flutter in them
which prevented their giving much pleasure to her sister, and this agita-
tion increased as the evening drew on. She could scarcely eat any dinner,
and when they afterwards returned to the drawing room, seemed anx-
iously listening to the sound of every carriage.
It was a great satisfaction to Elinor that Mrs. Jennings, by being much
engaged in her own room, could see little of what was passing. The tea
things were brought in, and already had Marianne been disappointed
more than once by a rap at a neighbouring door, when a loud one was
suddenly heard which could not be mistaken for one at any other house,
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them all, that it was hard to say whether she received most pleasure from
meeting her mother or the Miss Dashwoods again. So surprised at their
coming to town, though it was what she had rather expected all along;
so angry at their accepting her mother’s invitation after having declined
her own, though at the same time she would never have forgiven them if
they had not come!
“Mr. Palmer will be so happy to see you,” said she; “What do you
think he said when he heard of your coming with Mamma? I forget what
it was now, but it was something so droll!”
After an hour or two spent in what her mother called comfortable
chat, or in other words, in every variety of inquiry concerning all their
acquaintance on Mrs. Jennings’s side, and in laughter without cause on
Mrs. Palmer’s, it was proposed by the latter that they should all accom-
pany her to some shops where she had business that morning, to which
Mrs. Jennings and Elinor readily consented, as having likewise some pur-
chases to make themselves; and Marianne, though declining it at first
was induced to go likewise.
Wherever they went, she was evidently always on the watch. In Bond
Street especially, where much of their business lay, her eyes were in con-
stant inquiry; and in whatever shop the party were engaged, her mind
was equally abstracted from every thing actually before them, from all
that interested and occupied the others. Restless and dissatisfied every
where, her sister could never obtain her opinion of any article of pur-
chase, however it might equally concern them both: she received no plea-
sure from anything; was only impatient to be at home again, and could
with difficulty govern her vexation at the tediousness of Mrs. Palmer,
whose eye was caught by every thing pretty, expensive, or new; who was
wild to buy all, could determine on none, and dawdled away her time in
rapture and indecision.
It was late in the morning before they returned home; and no sooner
had they entered the house than Marianne flew eagerly up stairs, and
when Elinor followed, she found her turning from the table with a sor-
rowful countenance, which declared that no Willoughby had been there.
“Has no letter been left here for me since we went out?” said she to
the footman who then entered with the parcels. She was answered in the
negative. “Are you quite sure of it?” she replied. “Are you certain that
no servant, no porter has left any letter or note?”
The man replied that none had.
“How very odd!” said she, in a low and disappointed voice, as she
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Chapter 27
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is charming weather for them indeed,” she continued, as she sat down
to the breakfast table with a happy countenance. “How much they must
enjoy it! But” (with a little return of anxiety) “it cannot be expected to
last long. At this time of the year, and after such a series of rain, we shall
certainly have very little more of it. Frosts will soon set in, and in all
probability with severity. In another day or two perhaps; this extreme
mildness can hardly last longer—nay, perhaps it may freeze tonight!”
“At any rate,” said Elinor, wishing to prevent Mrs. Jennings from
seeing her sister’s thoughts as clearly as she did, “I dare say we shall
have Sir John and Lady Middleton in town by the end of next week.”
“Ay, my dear, I’ll warrant you we do. Mary always has her own
way.”
“And now,” silently conjectured Elinor, “she will write to Combe by
this day’s post.”
But if she did, the letter was written and sent away with a privacy
which eluded all her watchfulness to ascertain the fact. Whatever the
truth of it might be, and far as Elinor was from feeling thorough content-
ment about it, yet while she saw Marianne in spirits, she could not be
very uncomfortable herself. And Marianne was in spirits; happy in the
mildness of the weather, and still happier in her expectation of a frost.
The morning was chiefly spent in leaving cards at the houses of Mrs.
Jennings’s acquaintance to inform them of her being in town; and Mari-
anne was all the time busy in observing the direction of the wind, watch-
ing the variations of the sky and imagining an alteration in the air.
“Don’t you find it colder than it was in the morning, Elinor? There
seems to me a very decided difference. I can hardly keep my hands warm
even in my muff. It was not so yesterday, I think. The clouds seem
parting too, the sun will be out in a moment, and we shall have a clear
afternoon.”
Elinor was alternately diverted and pained; but Marianne persevered,
and saw every night in the brightness of the fire, and every morning in
the appearance of the atmosphere, the certain symptoms of approaching
frost.
The Miss Dashwoods had no greater reason to be dissatisfied with
Mrs. Jennings’s style of living, and set of acquaintance, than with her
behaviour to themselves, which was invariably kind. Every thing in her
household arrangements was conducted on the most liberal plan, and ex-
cepting a few old city friends, whom, to Lady Middleton’s regret, she had
never dropped, she visited no one to whom an introduction could at all
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particular to tell her, sat for some time without saying a word. Elinor,
persuaded that he had some communication to make in which her sister
was concerned, impatiently expected its opening. It was not the first time
of her feeling the same kind of conviction; for, more than once before,
beginning with the observation of “your sister looks unwell to-day,” or
“your sister seems out of spirits,” he had appeared on the point, either of
disclosing, or of inquiring, something particular about her. After a pause
of several minutes, their silence was broken, by his asking her in a voice
of some agitation, when he was to congratulate her on the acquisition of
a brother? Elinor was not prepared for such a question, and having no
answer ready, was obliged to adopt the simple and common expedient,
of asking what he meant? He tried to smile as he replied, “your sister’s
engagement to Mr. Willoughby is very generally known.”
“It cannot be generally known,” returned Elinor, “for her own family
do not know it.”
He looked surprised and said, “I beg your pardon, I am afraid my in-
quiry has been impertinent; but I had not supposed any secrecy intended,
as they openly correspond, and their marriage is universally talked of.”
“How can that be? By whom can you have heard it mentioned?”
“By many—by some of whom you know nothing, by others with
whom you are most intimate, Mrs. Jennings, Mrs. Palmer, and the Mid-
dletons. But still I might not have believed it, for where the mind is
perhaps rather unwilling to be convinced, it will always find something
to support its doubts, if I had not, when the servant let me in today, ac-
cidentally seen a letter in his hand, directed to Mr. Willoughby in your
sister’s writing. I came to inquire, but I was convinced before I could
ask the question. Is every thing finally settled? Is it impossible to-? But
I have no right, and I could have no chance of succeeding. Excuse me,
Miss Dashwood. I believe I have been wrong in saying so much, but
I hardly know what to do, and on your prudence I have the strongest
dependence. Tell me that it is all absolutely resolved on, that any at-
tempt, that in short concealment, if concealment be possible, is all that
remains.”
These words, which conveyed to Elinor a direct avowal of his love
for her sister, affected her very much. She was not immediately able to
say anything, and even when her spirits were recovered, she debated for
a short time, on the answer it would be most proper to give. The real
state of things between Willoughby and her sister was so little known
to herself, that in endeavouring to explain it, she might be as liable to
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say too much as too little. Yet as she was convinced that Marianne’s
affection for Willoughby, could leave no hope of Colonel Brandon’s suc-
cess, whatever the event of that affection might be, and at the same time
wished to shield her conduct from censure, she thought it most prudent
and kind, after some consideration, to say more than she really knew or
believed. She acknowledged, therefore, that though she had never been
informed by themselves of the terms on which they stood with each other,
of their mutual affection she had no doubt, and of their correspondence
she was not astonished to hear.
He listened to her with silent attention, and on her ceasing to speak,
rose directly from his seat, and after saying in a voice of emotion, “to
your sister I wish all imaginable happiness; to Willoughby that he may
endeavour to deserve her,”—took leave, and went away.
Elinor derived no comfortable feelings from this conversation, to
lessen the uneasiness of her mind on other points; she was left, on the
contrary, with a melancholy impression of Colonel Brandon’s unhappi-
ness, and was prevented even from wishing it removed, by her anxiety
for the very event that must confirm it.
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company, and insufferably hot. When they had paid their tribute of
politeness by curtsying to the lady of the house, they were permitted to
mingle in the crowd, and take their share of the heat and inconvenience,
to which their arrival must necessarily add. After some time spent in
saying little or doing less, Lady Middleton sat down to Cassino, and as
Marianne was not in spirits for moving about, she and Elinor luckily
succeeding to chairs, placed themselves at no great distance from the
table.
They had not remained in this manner long, before Elinor perceived
Willoughby, standing within a few yards of them, in earnest conversation
with a very fashionable looking young woman. She soon caught his
eye, and he immediately bowed, but without attempting to speak to her,
or to approach Marianne, though he could not but see her; and then
continued his discourse with the same lady. Elinor turned involuntarily
to Marianne, to see whether it could be unobserved by her. At that
moment she first perceived him, and her whole countenance glowing
with sudden delight, she would have moved towards him instantly, had
not her sister caught hold of her.
“Good heavens!” she exclaimed, “he is there—he is there—Oh! why
does he not look at me? why cannot I speak to him?”
“Pray, pray be composed,” cried Elinor, “and do not betray what you
feel to every body present. Perhaps he has not observed you yet.”
This however was more than she could believe herself; and to be
composed at such a moment was not only beyond the reach of Marianne,
it was beyond her wish. She sat in an agony of impatience which affected
every feature.
At last he turned round again, and regarded them both; she started
up, and pronouncing his name in a tone of affection, held out her hand
to him. He approached, and addressing himself rather to Elinor than
Marianne, as if wishing to avoid her eye, and determined not to observe
her attitude, inquired in a hurried manner after Mrs. Dashwood, and
asked how long they had been in town. Elinor was robbed of all presence
of mind by such an address, and was unable to say a word. But the
feelings of her sister were instantly expressed. Her face was crimsoned
over, and she exclaimed, in a voice of the greatest emotion, “Good God!
Willoughby, what is the meaning of this? Have you not received my
letters? Will you not shake hands with me?”
He could not then avoid it, but her touch seemed painful to him,
and he held her hand only for a moment. During all this time he was
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Chapter 29
B EFORE THE HOUSE - MAID had lit their fire the next day, or the sun
gained any power over a cold, gloomy morning in January, Marianne,
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only half dressed, was kneeling against one of the window-seats for the
sake of all the little light she could command from it, and writing as fast
as a continual flow of tears would permit her. In this situation, Elinor,
roused from sleep by her agitation and sobs, first perceived her; and after
observing her for a few moments with silent anxiety, said, in a tone of
the most considerate gentleness,
“Marianne, may I ask-?”
“No, Elinor,” she replied, “ask nothing; you will soon know all.”
The sort of desperate calmness with which this was said, lasted no
longer than while she spoke, and was immediately followed by a return
of the same excessive affliction. It was some minutes before she could
go on with her letter, and the frequent bursts of grief which still obliged
her, at intervals, to withhold her pen, were proofs enough of her feeling
how more than probable it was that she was writing for the last time to
Willoughby.
Elinor paid her every quiet and unobtrusive attention in her power;
and she would have tried to sooth and tranquilize her still more, had
not Marianne entreated her, with all the eagerness of the most nervous
irritability, not to speak to her for the world. In such circumstances, it
was better for both that they should not be long together; and the restless
state of Marianne’s mind not only prevented her from remaining in the
room a moment after she was dressed, but requiring at once solitude
and continual change of place, made her wander about the house till
breakfast time, avoiding the sight of every body.
At breakfast she neither ate, nor attempted to eat any thing; and
Elinor’s attention was then all employed, not in urging her, not in pitying
her, nor in appearing to regard her, but in endeavouring to engage Mrs.
Jenning’s notice entirely to herself.
As this was a favourite meal with Mrs. Jennings, it lasted a consid-
erable time, and they were just setting themselves, after it, round the
common working table, when a letter was delivered to Marianne, which
she eagerly caught from the servant, and, turning of a death-like pale-
ness, instantly ran out of the room. Elinor, who saw as plainly by this,
as if she had seen the direction, that it must come from Willoughby, felt
immediately such a sickness at heart as made her hardly able to hold up
her head, and sat in such a general tremour as made her fear it impossi-
ble to escape Mrs. Jenning’s notice. That good lady, however, saw only
that Marianne had received a letter from Willoughby, which appeared
to her a very good joke, and which she treated accordingly, by hoping,
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with a laugh, that she would find it to her liking. Of Elinor’s distress, she
was too busily employed in measuring lengths of worsted for her rug, to
see any thing at all; and calmly continuing her talk, as soon as Marianne
disappeared, she said,
“Upon my word, I never saw a young woman so desperately in love
in my life! My girls were nothing to her, and yet they used to be foolish
enough; but as for Miss Marianne, she is quite an altered creature. I
hope, from the bottom of my heart, he won’t keep her waiting much
longer, for it is quite grievous to see her look so ill and forlorn. Pray,
when are they to be married?”
Elinor, though never less disposed to speak than at that moment,
obliged herself to answer such an attack as this, and, therefore, trying
to smile, replied, “And have you really, Ma’am, talked yourself into a
persuasion of my sister’s being engaged to Mr. Willoughby? I thought
it had been only a joke, but so serious a question seems to imply more;
and I must beg, therefore, that you will not deceive yourself any longer. I
do assure you that nothing would surprise me more than to hear of their
being going to be married.”
“For shame, for shame, Miss Dashwood! how can you talk so? Don’t
we all know that it must be a match, that they were over head and ears
in love with each other from the first moment they met? Did not I see
them together in Devonshire every day, and all day long; and did not I
know that your sister came to town with me on purpose to buy wedding
clothes? Come, come, this won’t do. Because you are so sly about it
yourself, you think nobody else has any senses; but it is no such thing, I
can tell you, for it has been known all over town this ever so long. I tell
every body of it and so does Charlotte.”
“Indeed, Ma’am,” said Elinor, very seriously, “you are mistaken. In-
deed, you are doing a very unkind thing in spreading the report, and you
will find that you have though you will not believe me now.”
Mrs. Jennings laughed again, but Elinor had not spirits to say more,
and eager at all events to know what Willoughby had written, hurried
away to their room, where, on opening the door, she saw Marianne
stretched on the bed, almost choked by grief, one letter in her hand, and
two or three others laying by her. Elinor drew near, but without saying
a word; and seating herself on the bed, took her hand, kissed her affec-
tionately several times, and then gave way to a burst of tears, which at
first was scarcely less violent than Marianne’s. The latter, though unable
to speak, seemed to feel all the tenderness of this behaviour, and after
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some time thus spent in joint affliction, she put all the letters into Eli-
nor’s hands; and then covering her face with her handkerchief, almost
screamed with agony. Elinor, who knew that such grief, shocking as
it was to witness it, must have its course, watched by her till this ex-
cess of suffering had somewhat spent itself, and then turning eagerly to
Willoughby’s letter, read as follows:
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Her second note, which had been written on the morning after the
dance at the Middletons’, was in these words:—
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That such letters, so full of affection and confidence, could have been
so answered, Elinor, for Willoughby’s sake, would have been unwilling
to believe. But her condemnation of him did not blind her to the im-
propriety of their having been written at all; and she was silently griev-
ing over the imprudence which had hazarded such unsolicited proofs of
tenderness, not warranted by anything preceding, and most severely con-
demned by the event, when Marianne, perceiving that she had finished
the letters, observed to her that they contained nothing but what any one
would have written in the same situation.
“I felt myself,” she added, “to be as solemnly engaged to him, as if
the strictest legal covenant had bound us to each other.”
“I can believe it,” said Elinor; “but unfortunately he did not feel the
same.”
“He did feel the same, Elinor—for weeks and weeks he felt it. I
know he did. Whatever may have changed him now, (and nothing but
the blackest art employed against me can have done it), I was once as
dear to him as my own soul could wish. This lock of hair, which now
he can so readily give up, was begged of me with the most earnest sup-
plication. Had you seen his look, his manner, had you heard his voice at
that moment! Have you forgot the last evening of our being together at
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Barton? The morning that we parted too! When he told me that it might
be many weeks before we met again—his distress—can I ever forget his
distress?”
For a moment or two she could say no more; but when this emotion
had passed away, she added, in a firmer tone,
“Elinor, I have been cruelly used; but not by Willoughby.”
“Dearest Marianne, who but himself? By whom can he have been
instigated?”
“By all the world, rather than by his own heart. I could rather believe
every creature of my acquaintance leagued together to ruin me in his
opinion, than believe his nature capable of such cruelty. This woman of
whom he writes—whoever she be—or any one, in short, but your own
dear self, mama, and Edward, may have been so barbarous to bely me.
Beyond you three, is there a creature in the world whom I would not
rather suspect of evil than Willoughby, whose heart I know so well?”
Elinor would not contend, and only replied, “Whoever may have
been so detestably your enemy, let them be cheated of their malignant
triumph, my dear sister, by seeing how nobly the consciousness of your
own innocence and good intentions supports your spirits. It is a reason-
able and laudable pride which resists such malevolence.”
“No, no,” cried Marianne, “misery such as mine has no pride. I care
not who knows that I am wretched. The triumph of seeing me so may be
open to all the world. Elinor, Elinor, they who suffer little may be proud
and independent as they like—may resist insult, or return mortification—
but I cannot. I must feel—I must be wretched—and they are welcome to
enjoy the consciousness of it that can.”
“But for my mother’s sake and mine—”
“I would do more than for my own. But to appear happy when I am
so miserable—Oh! who can require it?”
Again they were both silent. Elinor was employed in walking thought-
fully from the fire to the window, from the window to the fire, with-
out knowing that she received warmth from one, or discerning objects
through the other; and Marianne, seated at the foot of the bed, with her
head leaning against one of its posts, again took up Willoughby’s letter,
and, after shuddering over every sentence, exclaimed—
“It is too much! Oh, Willoughby, Willoughby, could this be yours!
Cruel, cruel—nothing can acquit you. Elinor, nothing can. Whatever
he might have heard against me—ought he not to have suspended his
belief? ought he not to have told me of it, to have given me the power
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of clearing myself? ‘The lock of hair, (repeating it from the letter,) which
you so obligingly bestowed on me’—That is unpardonable. Willoughby,
where was your heart when you wrote those words? Oh, barbarously
insolent!—Elinor, can he be justified?”
“No, Marianne, in no possible way.”
“And yet this woman—who knows what her art may have been?—
how long it may have been premeditated, and how deeply contrived by
her!—Who is she?—Who can she be?—Whom did I ever hear him talk
of as young and attractive among his female acquaintance?—Oh! no
one, no one—he talked to me only of myself.”
Another pause ensued; Marianne was greatly agitated, and it ended
thus.
“Elinor, I must go home. I must go and comfort mama. Can not we
be gone to-morrow?”
“To-morrow, Marianne!”
“Yes, why should I stay here? I came only for Willoughby’s sake—
and now who cares for me? Who regards me?”
“It would be impossible to go to-morrow. We owe Mrs. Jennings
much more than civility; and civility of the commonest kind must prevent
such a hasty removal as that.”
“Well then, another day or two, perhaps; but I cannot stay here long,
I cannot stay to endure the questions and remarks of all these people.
The Middletons and Palmers—how am I to bear their pity? The pity of
such a woman as Lady Middleton! Oh, what would he say to that!”
Elinor advised her to lie down again, and for a moment she did so;
but no attitude could give her ease; and in restless pain of mind and
body she moved from one posture to another, till growing more and
more hysterical, her sister could with difficulty keep her on the bed at all,
and for some time was fearful of being constrained to call for assistance.
Some lavender drops, however, which she was at length persuaded to
take, were of use; and from that time till Mrs. Jennings returned, she
continued on the bed quiet and motionless.
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might make her at all less so. She treated her therefore, with all the in-
dulgent fondness of a parent towards a favourite child on the last day of
its holidays. Marianne was to have the best place by the fire, was to be
tempted to eat by every delicacy in the house, and to be amused by the re-
lation of all the news of the day. Had not Elinor, in the sad countenance
of her sister, seen a check to all mirth, she could have been entertained
by Mrs. Jennings’s endeavours to cure a disappointment in love, by a va-
riety of sweetmeats and olives, and a good fire. As soon, however, as the
consciousness of all this was forced by continual repetition on Marianne,
she could stay no longer. With a hasty exclamation of Misery, and a sign
to her sister not to follow her, she directly got up and hurried out of the
room.
“Poor soul!” cried Mrs. Jennings, as soon as she was gone, “how
it grieves me to see her! And I declare if she is not gone away without
finishing her wine! And the dried cherries too! Lord! nothing seems
to do her any good. I am sure if I knew of any thing she would like, I
would send all over the town for it. Well, it is the oddest thing to me,
that a man should use such a pretty girl so ill! But when there is plenty
of money on one side, and next to none on the other, Lord bless you!
they care no more about such things!—”
“The lady then—Miss Grey I think you called her—is very rich?”
“Fifty thousand pounds, my dear. Did you ever see her? a smart,
stylish girl they say, but not handsome. I remember her aunt very well,
Biddy Henshawe; she married a very wealthy man. But the family are all
rich together. Fifty thousand pounds! and by all accounts, it won’t come
before it’s wanted; for they say he is all to pieces. No wonder! dashing
about with his curricle and hunters! Well, it don’t signify talking; but
when a young man, be who he will, comes and makes love to a pretty
girl, and promises marriage, he has no business to fly off from his word
only because he grows poor, and a richer girl is ready to have him. Why
don’t he, in such a case, sell his horses, let his house, turn off his servants,
and make a thorough reform at once? I warrant you, Miss Marianne
would have been ready to wait till matters came round. But that won’t
do now-a-days; nothing in the way of pleasure can ever be given up by
the young men of this age.”
“Do you know what kind of a girl Miss Grey is? Is she said to be
amiable?”
“I never heard any harm of her; indeed I hardly ever heard her men-
tioned; except that Mrs. Taylor did say this morning, that one day Miss
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Walker hinted to her, that she believed Mr. and Mrs. Ellison would not
be sorry to have Miss Grey married, for she and Mrs. Ellison could never
agree.”—
“And who are the Ellisons?”
“Her guardians, my dear. But now she is of age and may choose for
herself; and a pretty choice she has made!—What now,” after pausing
a moment—“your poor sister is gone to her own room, I suppose, to
moan by herself. Is there nothing one can get to comfort her? Poor dear,
it seems quite cruel to let her be alone. Well, by-and-by we shall have a
few friends, and that will amuse her a little. What shall we play at? She
hates whist I know; but is there no round game she cares for?”
“Dear ma’am, this kindness is quite unnecessary. Marianne, I dare
say, will not leave her room again this evening. I shall persuade her if I
can to go early to bed, for I am sure she wants rest.”
“Aye, I believe that will be best for her. Let her name her own supper,
and go to bed. Lord! no wonder she has been looking so bad and so cast
down this last week or two, for this matter I suppose has been hanging
over her head as long as that. And so the letter that came today finished
it! Poor soul! I am sure if I had had a notion of it, I would not have
joked her about it for all my money. But then you know, how should
I guess such a thing? I made sure of its being nothing but a common
love letter, and you know young people like to be laughed at about them.
Lord! how concerned Sir John and my daughters will be when they hear
it! If I had my senses about me I might have called in Conduit Street in
my way home, and told them of it. But I shall see them tomorrow.”
“It would be unnecessary I am sure, for you to caution Mrs. Palmer
and Sir John against ever naming Mr. Willoughby, or making the slightest
allusion to what has passed, before my sister. Their own good-nature
must point out to them the real cruelty of appearing to know any thing
about it when she is present; and the less that may ever be said to myself
on the subject, the more my feelings will be spared, as you my dear
madam will easily believe.”
“Oh! Lord! yes, that I do indeed. It must be terrible for you to hear
it talked of; and as for your sister, I am sure I would not mention a word
about it to her for the world. You saw I did not all dinner time. No more
would Sir John, nor my daughters, for they are all very thoughtful and
considerate; especially if I give them a hint, as I certainly will. For my
part, I think the less that is said about such things, the better, the sooner
’tis blown over and forgot. And what does talking ever do you know?”
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“In this affair it can only do harm; more so perhaps than in many
cases of a similar kind, for it has been attended by circumstances which,
for the sake of every one concerned in it, make it unfit to become the
public conversation. I must do this justice to Mr. Willoughby—he has
broken no positive engagement with my sister.”
“Law, my dear! Don’t pretend to defend him. No positive engage-
ment indeed! after taking her all over Allenham House, and fixing on
the very rooms they were to live in hereafter!”
Elinor, for her sister’s sake, could not press the subject farther, and
she hoped it was not required of her for Willoughby’s; since, though
Marianne might lose much, he could gain very little by the enforcement
of the real truth. After a short silence on both sides, Mrs. Jennings, with
all her natural hilarity, burst forth again.
“Well, my dear, ’tis a true saying about an ill-wind, for it will be all
the better for Colonel Brandon. He will have her at last; aye, that he
will. Mind me, now, if they an’t married by Mid-summer. Lord! how
he’ll chuckle over this news! I hope he will come tonight. It will be
all to one a better match for your sister. Two thousand a year without
debt or drawback—except the little love-child, indeed; aye, I had forgot
her; but she may be ’prenticed out at a small cost, and then what does
it signify? Delaford is a nice place, I can tell you; exactly what I call a
nice old fashioned place, full of comforts and conveniences; quite shut in
with great garden walls that are covered with the best fruit-trees in the
country; and such a mulberry tree in one corner! Lord! how Charlotte
and I did stuff the only time we were there! Then, there is a dove-cote,
some delightful stew-ponds, and a very pretty canal; and every thing, in
short, that one could wish for; and, moreover, it is close to the church,
and only a quarter of a mile from the turnpike-road, so ’tis never dull,
for if you only go and sit up in an old yew arbour behind the house, you
may see all the carriages that pass along. Oh! ’tis a nice place! A butcher
hard by in the village, and the parsonage-house within a stone’s throw.
To my fancy, a thousand times prettier than Barton Park, where they
are forced to send three miles for their meat, and have not a neighbour
nearer than your mother. Well, I shall spirit up the Colonel as soon as
I can. One shoulder of mutton, you know, drives another down. If we
can but put Willoughby out of her head!”
“Ay, if we can do that, Ma’am,” said Elinor, “we shall do very well
with or without Colonel Brandon.” And then rising, she went away
to join Marianne, whom she found, as she expected, in her own room,
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leaning, in silent misery, over the small remains of a fire, which, till
Elinor’s entrance, had been her only light.
“You had better leave me,” was all the notice that her sister received
from her.
“I will leave you,” said Elinor, “if you will go to bed.” But this, from
the momentary perverseness of impatient suffering, she at first refused
to do. Her sister’s earnest, though gentle persuasion, however, soon
softened her to compliance, and Elinor saw her lay her aching head on
the pillow, and as she hoped, in a way to get some quiet rest before she
left her.
In the drawing-room, whither she then repaired, she was soon joined
by Mrs. Jennings, with a wine-glass, full of something, in her hand.
“My dear,” said she, entering, “I have just recollected that I have
some of the finest old Constantia wine in the house that ever was tasted,
so I have brought a glass of it for your sister. My poor husband! how
fond he was of it! Whenever he had a touch of his old colicky gout, he
said it did him more good than any thing else in the world. Do take it to
your sister.”
“Dear Ma’am,” replied Elinor, smiling at the difference of the com-
plaints for which it was recommended, “how good you are! But I have
just left Marianne in bed, and, I hope, almost asleep; and as I think noth-
ing will be of so much service to her as rest, if you will give me leave, I
will drink the wine myself.”
Mrs. Jennings, though regretting that she had not been five minutes
earlier, was satisfied with the compromise; and Elinor, as she swallowed
the chief of it, reflected, that though its effects on a colicky gout were, at
present, of little importance to her, its healing powers, on a disappointed
heart might be as reasonably tried on herself as on her sister.
Colonel Brandon came in while the party were at tea, and by his
manner of looking round the room for Marianne, Elinor immediately
fancied that he neither expected nor wished to see her there, and, in
short, that he was already aware of what occasioned her absence. Mrs.
Jennings was not struck by the same thought; for soon after his entrance,
she walked across the room to the tea-table where Elinor presided, and
whispered—“The Colonel looks as grave as ever you see. He knows
nothing of it; do tell him, my dear.”
He shortly afterwards drew a chair close to her’s, and, with a look
which perfectly assured her of his good information, inquired after her
sister.
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“Marianne is not well,” said she. “She has been indisposed all day,
and we have persuaded her to go to bed.”
“Perhaps, then,” he hesitatingly replied, “what I heard this morning
may be—there may be more truth in it than I could believe possible at
first.”
“What did you hear?”
“That a gentleman, whom I had reason to think—in short, that a
man, whom I knew to be engaged—but how shall I tell you? If you
know it already, as surely you must, I may be spared.”
“You mean,” answered Elinor, with forced calmness, “Mr.
Willoughby’s marriage with Miss Grey. Yes, we do know it all. This
seems to have been a day of general elucidation, for this very morning
first unfolded it to us. Mr. Willoughby is unfathomable! Where did you
hear it?”
“In a stationer’s shop in Pall Mall, where I had business. Two ladies
were waiting for their carriage, and one of them was giving the other
an account of the intended match, in a voice so little attempting con-
cealment, that it was impossible for me not to hear all. The name of
Willoughby, John Willoughby, frequently repeated, first caught my atten-
tion; and what followed was a positive assertion that every thing was
now finally settled respecting his marriage with Miss Grey—it was no
longer to be a secret—it would take place even within a few weeks, with
many particulars of preparations and other matters. One thing, espe-
cially, I remember, because it served to identify the man still more:—as
soon as the ceremony was over, they were to go to Combe Magna, his
seat in Somersetshire. My astonishment!—but it would be impossible to
describe what I felt. The communicative lady I learnt, on inquiry, for I
stayed in the shop till they were gone, was a Mrs. Ellison, and that, as I
have been since informed, is the name of Miss Grey’s guardian.”
“It is. But have you likewise heard that Miss Grey has fifty thousand
pounds? In that, if in any thing, we may find an explanation.”
“It may be so; but Willoughby is capable—at least I think”—he
stopped a moment; then added in a voice which seemed to distrust it-
self, “And your sister—how did she—”
“Her sufferings have been very severe. I have only to hope that they
may be proportionately short. It has been, it is a most cruel affliction.
Till yesterday, I believe, she never doubted his regard; and even now,
perhaps—but I am almost convinced that he never was really attached
to her. He has been very deceitful! and, in some points, there seems a
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ment of her own mind, and the too great importance placed by her on
the delicacies of a strong sensibility, and the graces of a polished man-
ner. Like half the rest of the world, if more than half there be that are
clever and good, Marianne, with excellent abilities and an excellent dis-
position, was neither reasonable nor candid. She expected from other
people the same opinions and feelings as her own, and she judged of
their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on herself. Thus a
circumstance occurred, while the sisters were together in their own room
after breakfast, which sunk the heart of Mrs. Jennings still lower in her
estimation; because, through her own weakness, it chanced to prove a
source of fresh pain to herself, though Mrs. Jennings was governed in it
by an impulse of the utmost goodwill.
With a letter in her outstretched hand, and countenance gaily smiling,
from the persuasion of bringing comfort, she entered their room, saying,
“Now, my dear, I bring you something that I am sure will do you
good.”
Marianne heard enough. In one moment her imagination placed be-
fore her a letter from Willoughby, full of tenderness and contrition, ex-
planatory of all that had passed, satisfactory, convincing; and instantly
followed by Willoughby himself, rushing eagerly into the room to in-
force, at her feet, by the eloquence of his eyes, the assurances of his letter.
The work of one moment was destroyed by the next. The hand writing
of her mother, never till then unwelcome, was before her; and, in the
acuteness of the disappointment which followed such an ecstasy of more
than hope, she felt as if, till that instant, she had never suffered.
The cruelty of Mrs. Jennings no language, within her reach in her mo-
ments of happiest eloquence, could have expressed; and now she could
reproach her only by the tears which streamed from her eyes with pas-
sionate violence—a reproach, however, so entirely lost on its object, that
after many expressions of pity, she withdrew, still referring her to the
letter of comfort. But the letter, when she was calm enough to read
it, brought little comfort. Willoughby filled every page. Her mother,
still confident of their engagement, and relying as warmly as ever on
his constancy, had only been roused by Elinor’s application, to intreat
from Marianne greater openness towards them both; and this, with such
tenderness towards her, such affection for Willoughby, and such a con-
viction of their future happiness in each other, that she wept with agony
through the whole of it.
All her impatience to be at home again now returned; her mother was
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dearer to her than ever; dearer through the very excess of her mistaken
confidence in Willoughby, and she was wildly urgent to be gone. Elinor,
unable herself to determine whether it were better for Marianne to be in
London or at Barton, offered no counsel of her own except of patience
till their mother’s wishes could be known; and at length she obtained her
sister’s consent to wait for that knowledge.
Mrs. Jennings left them earlier than usual; for she could not be easy
till the Middletons and Palmers were able to grieve as much as herself;
and positively refusing Elinor’s offered attendance, went out alone for
the rest of the morning. Elinor, with a very heavy heart, aware of the
pain she was going to communicate, and perceiving, by Marianne’s letter,
how ill she had succeeded in laying any foundation for it, then sat down
to write her mother an account of what had passed, and entreat her
directions for the future; while Marianne, who came into the drawing-
room on Mrs. Jennings’s going away, remained fixed at the table where
Elinor wrote, watching the advancement of her pen, grieving over her
for the hardship of such a task, and grieving still more fondly over its
effect on her mother.
In this manner they had continued about a quarter of an hour, when
Marianne, whose nerves could not then bear any sudden noise, was star-
tled by a rap at the door.
“Who can this be?” cried Elinor. “So early too! I thought we had
been safe.”
Marianne moved to the window—
“It is Colonel Brandon!” said she, with vexation. “We are never safe
from him.”
“He will not come in, as Mrs. Jennings is from home.”
“I will not trust to that,” retreating to her own room. “A man who
has nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion
on that of others.”
The event proved her conjecture right, though it was founded on
injustice and error; for Colonel Brandon did come in; and Elinor, who
was convinced that solicitude for Marianne brought him thither, and
who saw that solicitude in his disturbed and melancholy look, and in his
anxious though brief inquiry after her, could not forgive her sister for
esteeming him so lightly.
“I met Mrs. Jennings in Bond Street,” said he, after the first saluta-
tion, “and she encouraged me to come on; and I was the more easily
encouraged, because I thought it probable that I might find you alone,
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JANE AUSTEN
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“It was nearly three years after this unhappy period before I returned
to England. My first care, when I did arrive, was of course to seek for
her; but the search was as fruitless as it was melancholy. I could not trace
her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to fear that she
had removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of sin. Her legal
allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor sufficient for her com-
fortable maintenance, and I learnt from my brother that the power of
receiving it had been made over some months before to another person.
He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it, that her extravagance, and
consequent distress, had obliged her to dispose of it for some immediate
relief. At last, however, and after I had been six months in England, I did
find her. Regard for a former servant of my own, who had since fallen
into misfortune, carried me to visit him in a spunging-house, where he
was confined for debt; and there, the same house, under a similar con-
finement, was my unfortunate sister. So altered—so faded—worn down
by acute suffering of every kind! hardly could I believe the melancholy
and sickly figure before me, to be the remains of the lovely, blooming,
healthful girl, on whom I had once doted. What I endured in so behold-
ing her—but I have no right to wound your feelings by attempting to
describe it—I have pained you too much already. That she was, to all
appearance, in the last stage of a consumption, was—yes, in such a situ-
ation it was my greatest comfort. Life could do nothing for her, beyond
giving time for a better preparation for death; and that was given. I saw
her placed in comfortable lodgings, and under proper attendants; I vis-
ited her every day during the rest of her short life: I was with her in her
last moments.”
Again he stopped to recover himself; and Elinor spoke her feelings in
an exclamation of tender concern, at the fate of his unfortunate friend.
“Your sister, I hope, cannot be offended,” said he, “by the resem-
blance I have fancied between her and my poor disgraced relation. Their
fates, their fortunes, cannot be the same; and had the natural sweet dis-
position of the one been guarded by a firmer mind, or a happier marriage,
she might have been all that you will live to see the other be. But to what
does all this lead? I seem to have been distressing you for nothing. Ah!
Miss Dashwood—a subject such as this—untouched for fourteen years—
it is dangerous to handle it at all! I will be more collected—more concise.
She left to my care her only child, a little girl, the offspring of her first
guilty connection, who was then about three years old. She loved the
child, and had always kept it with her. It was a valued, a precious trust
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do. He had left the girl whose youth and innocence he had seduced, in
a situation of the utmost distress, with no creditable home, no help, no
friends, ignorant of his address! He had left her, promising to return; he
neither returned, nor wrote, nor relieved her.”
“This is beyond every thing!” exclaimed Elinor.
“His character is now before you; expensive, dissipated, and worse
than both. Knowing all this, as I have now known it many weeks, guess
what I must have felt on seeing your sister as fond of him as ever, and
on being assured that she was to marry him: guess what I must have
felt for all your sakes. When I came to you last week and found you
alone, I came determined to know the truth; though irresolute what to
do when it was known. My behaviour must have seemed strange to
you then; but now you will comprehend it. To suffer you all to be so
deceived; to see your sister—but what could I do? I had no hope of
interfering with success; and sometimes I thought your sister’s influence
might yet reclaim him. But now, after such dishonorable usage, who
can tell what were his designs on her. Whatever they may have been,
however, she may now, and hereafter doubtless will turn with gratitude
towards her own condition, when she compares it with that of my poor
Eliza, when she considers the wretched and hopeless situation of this
poor girl, and pictures her to herself, with an affection for him so strong,
still as strong as her own, and with a mind tormented by self-reproach,
which must attend her through life. Surely this comparison must have
its use with her. She will feel her own sufferings to be nothing. They
proceed from no misconduct, and can bring no disgrace. On the contrary,
every friend must be made still more her friend by them. Concern for
her unhappiness, and respect for her fortitude under it, must strengthen
every attachment. Use your own discretion, however, in communicating
to her what I have told you. You must know best what will be its effect;
but had I not seriously, and from my heart believed it might be of service,
might lessen her regrets, I would not have suffered myself to trouble you
with this account of my family afflictions, with a recital which may seem
to have been intended to raise myself at the expense of others.”
Elinor’s thanks followed this speech with grateful earnestness; at-
tended too with the assurance of her expecting material advantage to
Marianne, from the communication of what had passed.
“I have been more pained,” said she, “by her endeavors to acquit
him than by all the rest; for it irritates her mind more than the most
perfect conviction of his unworthiness can do. Now, though at first she
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will suffer much, I am sure she will soon become easier. Have you,” she
continued, after a short silence, “ever seen Mr. Willoughby since you left
him at Barton?”
“Yes,” he replied gravely, “once I have. One meeting was unavoid-
able.”
Elinor, startled by his manner, looked at him anxiously, saying,
“What? have you met him to—”
“I could meet him no other way. Eliza had confessed to me, though
most reluctantly, the name of her lover; and when he returned to town,
which was within a fortnight after myself, we met by appointment, he
to defend, I to punish his conduct. We returned unwounded, and the
meeting, therefore, never got abroad.”
Elinor sighed over the fancied necessity of this; but to a man and a
soldier she presumed not to censure it.
“Such,” said Colonel Brandon, after a pause, “has been the unhappy
resemblance between the fate of mother and daughter! and so imper-
fectly have I discharged my trust!”
“Is she still in town?”
“No; as soon as she recovered from her lying-in, for I found her near
her delivery, I removed her and her child into the country, and there she
remains.”
Recollecting, soon afterwards, that he was probably dividing Elinor
from her sister, he put an end to his visit, receiving from her again the
same grateful acknowledgments, and leaving her full of compassion and
esteem for him.
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drop his acquaintance immediately, and she was very thankful that she
had never been acquainted with him at all. She wished with all her heart
Combe Magna was not so near Cleveland; but it did not signify, for it
was a great deal too far off to visit; she hated him so much that she was
resolved never to mention his name again, and she should tell everybody
she saw, how good-for-nothing he was.”
The rest of Mrs. Palmer’s sympathy was shewn in procuring all the
particulars in her power of the approaching marriage, and communicat-
ing them to Elinor. She could soon tell at what coachmaker’s the new
carriage was building, by what painter Mr. Willoughby’s portrait was
drawn, and at what warehouse Miss Grey’s clothes might be seen.
The calm and polite unconcern of Lady Middleton on the occasion
was a happy relief to Elinor’s spirits, oppressed as they often were by the
clamorous kindness of the others. It was a great comfort to her to be
sure of exciting no interest in one person at least among their circle of
friends: a great comfort to know that there was one who would meet
her without feeling any curiosity after particulars, or any anxiety for her
sister’s health.
Every qualification is raised at times, by the circumstances of the mo-
ment, to more than its real value; and she was sometimes worried down
by officious condolence to rate good-breeding as more indispensable to
comfort than good-nature.
Lady Middleton expressed her sense of the affair about once every
day, or twice, if the subject occurred very often, by saying, “It is very
shocking, indeed!” and by the means of this continual though gentle
vent, was able not only to see the Miss Dashwoods from the first without
the smallest emotion, but very soon to see them without recollecting a
word of the matter; and having thus supported the dignity of her own
sex, and spoken her decided censure of what was wrong in the other, she
thought herself at liberty to attend to the interest of her own assemblies,
and therefore determined (though rather against the opinion of Sir John)
that as Mrs. Willoughby would at once be a woman of elegance and
fortune, to leave her card with her as soon as she married.
Colonel Brandon’s delicate, unobtrusive enquiries were never unwel-
come to Miss Dashwood. He had abundantly earned the privilege of
intimate discussion of her sister’s disappointment, by the friendly zeal
with which he had endeavoured to soften it, and they always conversed
with confidence. His chief reward for the painful exertion of disclos-
ing past sorrows and present humiliations, was given in the pitying eye
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not stay above a month. But I thought, at the time, that you would most
likely change your mind when it came to the point. It would have been
such a great pity to have went away before your brother and sister came.
And now to be sure you will be in no hurry to be gone. I am amazingly
glad you did not keep to your word.”
Elinor perfectly understood her, and was forced to use all her self-
command to make it appear that she did not.
“Well, my dear,” said Mrs. Jennings, “and how did you travel?”
“Not in the stage, I assure you,” replied Miss Steele, with quick exul-
tation; “we came post all the way, and had a very smart beau to attend
us. Dr. Davies was coming to town, and so we thought we’d join him
in a post-chaise; and he behaved very genteelly, and paid ten or twelve
shillings more than we did.”
“Oh, oh!” cried Mrs. Jennings; “very pretty, indeed! and the Doctor
is a single man, I warrant you.”
“There now,” said Miss Steele, affectedly simpering, “everybody
laughs at me so about the Doctor, and I cannot think why. My cousins
say they are sure I have made a conquest; but for my part I declare I never
think about him from one hour’s end to another. ‘Lord! here comes your
beau, Nancy,’ my cousin said t’other day, when she saw him crossing the
street to the house. My beau, indeed! said I—I cannot think who you
mean. The Doctor is no beau of mine.”
“Aye, aye, that is very pretty talking—but it won’t do—the Doctor is
the man, I see.”
“No, indeed!” replied her cousin, with affected earnestness, “and I
beg you will contradict it, if you ever hear it talked of.”
Mrs. Jennings directly gave her the gratifying assurance that she cer-
tainly would not, and Miss Steele was made completely happy.
“I suppose you will go and stay with your brother and sister, Miss
Dashwood, when they come to town,” said Lucy, returning, after a ces-
sation of hostile hints, to the charge.
“No, I do not think we shall.”
“Oh, yes, I dare say you will.”
Elinor would not humour her by farther opposition.
“What a charming thing it is that Mrs. Dashwood can spare you both
for so long a time together!”
“Long a time, indeed!” interposed Mrs. Jennings. “Why, their visit
is but just begun!”
Lucy was silenced.
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his taste, proved to be beyond his politeness. He was giving orders for
a toothpick-case for himself, and till its size, shape, and ornaments were
determined, all of which, after examining and debating for a quarter of
an hour over every toothpick-case in the shop, were finally arranged by
his own inventive fancy, he had no leisure to bestow any other attention
on the two ladies, than what was comprised in three or four very broad
stares; a kind of notice which served to imprint on Elinor the remem-
brance of a person and face, of strong, natural, sterling insignificance,
though adorned in the first style of fashion.
Marianne was spared from the troublesome feelings of contempt and
resentment, on this impertinent examination of their features, and on
the puppyism of his manner in deciding on all the different horrors of
the different toothpick-cases presented to his inspection, by remaining
unconscious of it all; for she was as well able to collect her thoughts
within herself, and be as ignorant of what was passing around her, in Mr.
Gray’s shop, as in her own bedroom.
At last the affair was decided. The ivory, the gold, and the pearls,
all received their appointment, and the gentleman having named the last
day on which his existence could be continued without the possession of
the toothpick-case, drew on his gloves with leisurely care, and bestowing
another glance on the Miss Dashwoods, but such a one as seemed rather
to demand than express admiration, walked off with a happy air of real
conceit and affected indifference.
Elinor lost no time in bringing her business forward, was on the point
of concluding it, when another gentleman presented himself at her side.
She turned her eyes towards his face, and found him with some surprise
to be her brother.
Their affection and pleasure in meeting was just enough to make a
very creditable appearance in Mr. Gray’s shop. John Dashwood was
really far from being sorry to see his sisters again; it rather gave them
satisfaction; and his inquiries after their mother were respectful and at-
tentive.
Elinor found that he and Fanny had been in town two days.
“I wished very much to call upon you yesterday,” said he, “but it
was impossible, for we were obliged to take Harry to see the wild beasts
at Exeter Exchange; and we spent the rest of the day with Mrs. Ferrars.
Harry was vastly pleased. This morning I had fully intended to call on
you, if I could possibly find a spare half hour, but one has always so
much to do on first coming to town. I am come here to bespeak Fanny
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china, &c. to supply the place of what was taken away. You may guess,
after all these expenses, how very far we must be from being rich, and
how acceptable Mrs. Ferrars’s kindness is.”
“Certainly,” said Elinor; “and assisted by her liberality, I hope you
may yet live to be in easy circumstances.”
“Another year or two may do much towards it,” he gravely replied;
“but however there is still a great deal to be done. There is not a stone
laid of Fanny’s green-house, and nothing but the plan of the flower-
garden marked out.”
“Where is the green-house to be?”
“Upon the knoll behind the house. The old walnut trees are all come
down to make room for it. It will be a very fine object from many parts
of the park, and the flower-garden will slope down just before it, and be
exceedingly pretty. We have cleared away all the old thorns that grew in
patches over the brow.”
Elinor kept her concern and her censure to herself; and was very
thankful that Marianne was not present, to share the provocation.
Having now said enough to make his poverty clear, and to do away
the necessity of buying a pair of ear-rings for each of his sisters, in his
next visit at Gray’s his thoughts took a cheerfuller turn, and he began to
congratulate Elinor on having such a friend as Mrs. Jennings.
“She seems a most valuable woman indeed—Her house, her style of
living, all bespeak an exceeding good income; and it is an acquaintance
that has not only been of great use to you hitherto, but in the end may
prove materially advantageous.—Her inviting you to town is certainly
a vast thing in your favour; and indeed, it speaks altogether so great
a regard for you, that in all probability when she dies you will not be
forgotten.—She must have a great deal to leave.”
“Nothing at all, I should rather suppose; for she has only her jointure,
which will descend to her children.”
“But it is not to be imagined that she lives up to her income. Few
people of common prudence will do that; and whatever she saves, she
will be able to dispose of.”
“And do you not think it more likely that she should leave it to her
daughters, than to us?”
“Her daughters are both exceedingly well married, and therefore I
cannot perceive the necessity of her remembering them farther. Whereas,
in my opinion, by her taking so much notice of you, and treating you in
this kind of way, she has given you a sort of claim on her future consider-
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not be too sedulously divided in word and deed on every occasion. The
intelligence however, which she would not give, soon flowed from an-
other quarter. Lucy came very shortly to claim Elinor’s compassion on
being unable to see Edward, though he had arrived in town with Mr. and
Mrs. Dashwood. He dared not come to Bartlett’s Buildings for fear of
detection, and though their mutual impatience to meet, was not to be
told, they could do nothing at present but write.
Edward assured them himself of his being in town, within a very
short time, by twice calling in Berkeley Street. Twice was his card found
on the table, when they returned from their morning’s engagements. Eli-
nor was pleased that he had called; and still more pleased that she had
missed him.
The Dashwoods were so prodigiously delighted with the Middletons,
that, though not much in the habit of giving anything, they determined
to give them—a dinner; and soon after their acquaintance began, invited
them to dine in Harley Street, where they had taken a very good house
for three months. Their sisters and Mrs. Jennings were invited likewise,
and John Dashwood was careful to secure Colonel Brandon, who, al-
ways glad to be where the Miss Dashwoods were, received his eager ci-
vilities with some surprise, but much more pleasure. They were to meet
Mrs. Ferrars; but Elinor could not learn whether her sons were to be of
the party. The expectation of seeing her, however, was enough to make
her interested in the engagement; for though she could now meet Ed-
ward’s mother without that strong anxiety which had once promised to
attend such an introduction, though she could now see her with perfect
indifference as to her opinion of herself, her desire of being in company
with Mrs. Ferrars, her curiosity to know what she was like, was as lively
as ever.
The interest with which she thus anticipated the party, was soon af-
terwards increased, more powerfully than pleasantly, by her hearing that
the Miss Steeles were also to be at it.
So well had they recommended themselves to Lady Middleton, so
agreeable had their assiduities made them to her, that though Lucy was
certainly not so elegant, and her sister not even genteel, she was as ready
as Sir John to ask them to spend a week or two in Conduit Street; and
it happened to be particularly convenient to the Miss Steeles, as soon
as the Dashwoods’ invitation was known, that their visit should begin a
few days before the party took place.
Their claims to the notice of Mrs. John Dashwood, as the nieces
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of the gentleman who for many years had had the care of her brother,
might not have done much, however, towards procuring them seats at
her table; but as Lady Middleton’s guests they must be welcome; and
Lucy, who had long wanted to be personally known to the family, to
have a nearer view of their characters and her own difficulties, and to
have an opportunity of endeavouring to please them, had seldom been
happier in her life, than she was on receiving Mrs. John Dashwood’s
card.
On Elinor its effect was very different. She began immediately to
determine, that Edward who lived with his mother, must be asked as his
mother was, to a party given by his sister; and to see him for the first
time, after all that passed, in the company of Lucy!—she hardly knew
how she could bear it!
These apprehensions, perhaps, were not founded entirely on reason,
and certainly not at all on truth. They were relieved however, not by
her own recollection, but by the good will of Lucy, who believed herself
to be inflicting a severe disappointment when she told her that Edward
certainly would not be in Harley Street on Tuesday, and even hoped to be
carrying the pain still farther by persuading her that he was kept away
by the extreme affection for herself, which he could not conceal when
they were together.
The important Tuesday came that was to introduce the two young
ladies to this formidable mother-in-law.
“Pity me, dear Miss Dashwood!” said Lucy, as they walked up the
stairs together—for the Middletons arrived so directly after Mrs. Jen-
nings, that they all followed the servant at the same time—“There is
nobody here but you, that can feel for me.—I declare I can hardly stand.
Good gracious!—In a moment I shall see the person that all my happi-
ness depends on—that is to be my mother!”—
Elinor could have given her immediate relief by suggesting the pos-
sibility of its being Miss Morton’s mother, rather than her own, whom
they were about to behold; but instead of doing that, she assured her,
and with great sincerity, that she did pity her—to the utter amazement
of Lucy, who, though really uncomfortable herself, hoped at least to be
an object of irrepressible envy to Elinor.
Mrs. Ferrars was a little, thin woman, upright, even to formality, in
her figure, and serious, even to sourness, in her aspect. Her complex-
ion was sallow; and her features small, without beauty, and naturally
without expression; but a lucky contraction of the brow had rescued her
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the ladies till coffee came in, which was the comparative heights of Harry
Dashwood, and Lady Middleton’s second son William, who were nearly
of the same age.
Had both the children been there, the affair might have been deter-
mined too easily by measuring them at once; but as Harry only was
present, it was all conjectural assertion on both sides; and every body
had a right to be equally positive in their opinion, and to repeat it over
and over again as often as they liked.
The parties stood thus:
The two mothers, though each really convinced that her own son was
the tallest, politely decided in favour of the other.
The two grandmothers, with not less partiality, but more sincerity,
were equally earnest in support of their own descendant.
Lucy, who was hardly less anxious to please one parent than the other,
thought the boys were both remarkably tall for their age, and could not
conceive that there could be the smallest difference in the world between
them; and Miss Steele, with yet greater address gave it, as fast as she
could, in favour of each.
Elinor, having once delivered her opinion on William’s side, by which
she offended Mrs. Ferrars and Fanny still more, did not see the necessity
of enforcing it by any farther assertion; and Marianne, when called on
for her’s, offended them all, by declaring that she had no opinion to give,
as she had never thought about it.
Before her removing from Norland, Elinor had painted a very pretty
pair of screens for her sister-in-law, which being now just mounted and
brought home, ornamented her present drawing room; and these screens,
catching the eye of John Dashwood on his following the other gentlemen
into the room, were officiously handed by him to Colonel Brandon for
his admiration.
“These are done by my eldest sister,” said he; “and you, as a man of
taste, will, I dare say, be pleased with them. I do not know whether you
have ever happened to see any of her performances before, but she is in
general reckoned to draw extremely well.”
The Colonel, though disclaiming all pretensions to connoisseurship,
warmly admired the screens, as he would have done any thing painted
by Miss Dashwood; and on the curiosity of the others being of course
excited, they were handed round for general inspection. Mrs. Ferrars,
not aware of their being Elinor’s work, particularly requested to look at
them; and after they had received gratifying testimony of Lady Middle-
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“Dear, dear Elinor, don’t mind them. Don’t let them make you un-
happy.”
She could say no more; her spirits were quite overcome, and hiding
her face on Elinor’s shoulder, she burst into tears. Every body’s attention
was called, and almost every body was concerned.—Colonel Brandon
rose up and went to them without knowing what he did.—Mrs. Jen-
nings, with a very intelligent “Ah! poor dear,” immediately gave her her
salts; and Sir John felt so desperately enraged against the author of this
nervous distress, that he instantly changed his seat to one close by Lucy
Steele, and gave her, in a whisper, a brief account of the whole shocking
affair.
In a few minutes, however, Marianne was recovered enough to put
an end to the bustle, and sit down among the rest; though her spirits
retained the impression of what had passed, the whole evening.
“Poor Marianne!” said her brother to Colonel Brandon, in a low
voice, as soon as he could secure his attention,—“She has not such
good health as her sister,—she is very nervous,—she has not Elinor’s
constitution;—and one must allow that there is something very trying to
a young woman who has been a beauty in the loss of her personal attrac-
tions. You would not think it perhaps, but Marianne was remarkably
handsome a few months ago; quite as handsome as Elinor.—Now you
see it is all gone.”
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the civility of Mrs. Ferrars;—that her interest and her vanity should so
very much blind her as to make the attention which seemed only paid her
because she was not Elinor, appear a compliment to herself—or to allow
her to derive encouragement from a preference only given her, because
her real situation was unknown. But that it was so, had not only been
declared by Lucy’s eyes at the time, but was declared over again the next
morning more openly, for at her particular desire, Lady Middleton set
her down in Berkeley Street on the chance of seeing Elinor alone, to tell
her how happy she was.
The chance proved a lucky one, for a message from Mrs. Palmer soon
after she arrived, carried Mrs. Jennings away.
“My dear friend,” cried Lucy, as soon as they were by themselves, “I
come to talk to you of my happiness. Could anything be so flattering
as Mrs. Ferrars’s way of treating me yesterday? So exceeding affable as
she was!—You know how I dreaded the thoughts of seeing her;—but
the very moment I was introduced, there was such an affability in her
behaviour as really should seem to say, she had quite took a fancy to me.
Now was not it so?—You saw it all; and was not you quite struck with
it?”
“She was certainly very civil to you.”
“Civil!—Did you see nothing but only civility?—I saw a vast deal
more. Such kindness as fell to the share of nobody but me!—No pride,
no hauteur, and your sister just the same—all sweetness and affability!”
Elinor wished to talk of something else, but Lucy still pressed her to
own that she had reason for her happiness; and Elinor was obliged to go
on.—
“Undoubtedly, if they had known your engagement,” said she, “noth-
ing could be more flattering than their treatment of you;—but as that was
not the case”—
“I guessed you would say so”—replied Lucy quickly—“but there was
no reason in the world why Mrs. Ferrars should seem to like me, if she
did not, and her liking me is every thing. You shan’t talk me out of my
satisfaction. I am sure it will all end well, and there will be no difficulties
at all, to what I used to think. Mrs. Ferrars is a charming woman, and
so is your sister. They are both delightful women, indeed!—I wonder I
should never hear you say how agreeable Mrs. Dashwood was!”
To this Elinor had no answer to make, and did not attempt any.
“Are you ill, Miss Dashwood?—you seem low—you don’t speak;—
sure you an’t well.”
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But Elinor had more to do; and so anxious was she, for his sake and
her own, to do it well, that she forced herself, after a moment’s recol-
lection, to welcome him, with a look and manner that were almost easy,
and almost open; and another struggle, another effort still improved
them. She would not allow the presence of Lucy, nor the conscious-
ness of some injustice towards herself, to deter her from saying that she
was happy to see him, and that she had very much regretted being from
home, when he called before in Berkeley Street. She would not be fright-
ened from paying him those attentions which, as a friend and almost a
relation, were his due, by the observant eyes of Lucy, though she soon
perceived them to be narrowly watching her.
Her manners gave some re-assurance to Edward, and he had courage
enough to sit down; but his embarrassment still exceeded that of the
ladies in a proportion, which the case rendered reasonable, though his
sex might make it rare; for his heart had not the indifference of Lucy’s,
nor could his conscience have quite the ease of Elinor’s.
Lucy, with a demure and settled air, seemed determined to make no
contribution to the comfort of the others, and would not say a word;
and almost every thing that was said, proceeded from Elinor, who was
obliged to volunteer all the information about her mother’s health, their
coming to town, &c. which Edward ought to have inquired about, but
never did.
Her exertions did not stop here; for she soon afterwards felt her-
self so heroically disposed as to determine, under pretence of fetching
Marianne, to leave the others by themselves; and she really did it, and
that in the handsomest manner, for she loitered away several minutes
on the landing-place, with the most high-minded fortitude, before she
went to her sister. When that was once done, however, it was time for
the raptures of Edward to cease; for Marianne’s joy hurried her into the
drawing-room immediately. Her pleasure in seeing him was like every
other of her feelings, strong in itself, and strongly spoken. She met him
with a hand that would be taken, and a voice that expressed the affection
of a sister.
“Dear Edward!” she cried, “this is a moment of great happiness!—
This would almost make amends for every thing?”
Edward tried to return her kindness as it deserved, but before such
witnesses he dared not say half what he really felt. Again they all
sat down, and for a moment or two all were silent; while Marianne
was looking with the most speaking tenderness, sometimes at Edward
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and sometimes at Elinor, regretting only that their delight in each other
should be checked by Lucy’s unwelcome presence. Edward was the first
to speak, and it was to notice Marianne’s altered looks, and express his
fear of her not finding London agree with her.
“Oh, don’t think of me!” she replied with spirited earnestness,
though her eyes were filled with tears as she spoke, “don’t think of my
health. Elinor is well, you see. That must be enough for us both.”
This remark was not calculated to make Edward or Elinor more easy,
nor to conciliate the good will of Lucy, who looked up at Marianne with
no very benignant expression.
“Do you like London?” said Edward, willing to say any thing that
might introduce another subject.
“Not at all. I expected much pleasure in it, but I have found none.
The sight of you, Edward, is the only comfort it has afforded; and thank
Heaven! you are what you always were!”
She paused—no one spoke.
“I think, Elinor,” she presently added, “we must employ Edward to
take care of us in our return to Barton. In a week or two, I suppose, we
shall be going; and, I trust, Edward will not be very unwilling to accept
the charge.”
Poor Edward muttered something, but what it was, nobody knew,
not even himself. But Marianne, who saw his agitation, and could easily
trace it to whatever cause best pleased herself, was perfectly satisfied,
and soon talked of something else.
“We spent such a day, Edward, in Harley Street yesterday! So dull,
so wretchedly dull!—But I have much to say to you on that head, which
cannot be said now.”
And with this admirable discretion did she defer the assurance of
her finding their mutual relatives more disagreeable than ever, and of
her being particularly disgusted with his mother, till they were more in
private.
“But why were you not there, Edward?—Why did you not come?”
“I was engaged elsewhere.”
“Engaged! But what was that, when such friends were to be met?”
“Perhaps, Miss Marianne,” cried Lucy, eager to take some revenge
on her, “you think young men never stand upon engagements, if they
have no mind to keep them, little as well as great.”
Elinor was very angry, but Marianne seemed entirely insensible of the
sting; for she calmly replied,
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“Not so, indeed; for, seriously speaking, I am very sure that con-
science only kept Edward from Harley Street. And I really believe he has
the most delicate conscience in the world; the most scrupulous in per-
forming every engagement, however minute, and however it may make
against his interest or pleasure. He is the most fearful of giving pain, of
wounding expectation, and the most incapable of being selfish, of any
body I ever saw. Edward, it is so, and I will say it. What! are you
never to hear yourself praised!—Then you must be no friend of mine;
for those who will accept of my love and esteem, must submit to my
open commendation.”
The nature of her commendation, in the present case, however, hap-
pened to be particularly ill-suited to the feelings of two thirds of her
auditors, and was so very unexhilarating to Edward, that he very soon
got up to go away.
“Going so soon!” said Marianne; “my dear Edward, this must not
be.”
And drawing him a little aside, she whispered her persuasion that
Lucy could not stay much longer. But even this encouragement failed,
for he would go; and Lucy, who would have outstaid him, had his visit
lasted two hours, soon afterwards went away.
“What can bring her here so often?” said Marianne, on her leaving
them. “Could not she see that we wanted her gone!—how teazing to
Edward!”
“Why so?—we were all his friends, and Lucy has been the longest
known to him of any. It is but natural that he should like to see her as
well as ourselves.”
Marianne looked at her steadily, and said, “You know, Elinor, that
this is a kind of talking which I cannot bear. If you only hope to have
your assertion contradicted, as I must suppose to be the case, you ought
to recollect that I am the last person in the world to do it. I cannot
descend to be tricked out of assurances, that are not really wanted.”
She then left the room; and Elinor dared not follow her to say more,
for bound as she was by her promise of secrecy to Lucy, she could give
no information that would convince Marianne; and painful as the con-
sequences of her still continuing in an error might be, she was obliged
to submit to it. All that she could hope, was that Edward would not of-
ten expose her or himself to the distress of hearing Marianne’s mistaken
warmth, nor to the repetition of any other part of the pain that had
attended their recent meeting—and this she had every reason to expect.
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taste for the performance, and a great many more who had none at all;
and the performers themselves were, as usual, in their own estimation,
and that of their immediate friends, the first private performers in Eng-
land.
As Elinor was neither musical, nor affecting to be so, she made no
scruple of turning her eyes from the grand pianoforte, whenever it suited
her, and unrestrained even by the presence of a harp, and violoncello,
would fix them at pleasure on any other object in the room. In one
of these excursive glances she perceived among a group of young men,
the very he, who had given them a lecture on toothpick-cases at Gray’s.
She perceived him soon afterwards looking at herself, and speaking fa-
miliarly to her brother; and had just determined to find out his name
from the latter, when they both came towards her, and Mr. Dashwood
introduced him to her as Mr. Robert Ferrars.
He addressed her with easy civility, and twisted his head into a bow
which assured her as plainly as words could have done, that he was ex-
actly the coxcomb she had heard him described to be by Lucy. Happy
had it been for her, if her regard for Edward had depended less on
his own merit, than on the merit of his nearest relations! For then
his brother’s bow must have given the finishing stroke to what the ill-
humour of his mother and sister would have begun. But while she won-
dered at the difference of the two young men, she did not find that the
emptiness of conceit of the one, put her out of all charity with the mod-
esty and worth of the other. Why they were different, Robert exclaimed
to her himself in the course of a quarter of an hour’s conversation; for,
talking of his brother, and lamenting the extreme gaucherie which he
really believed kept him from mixing in proper society, he candidly and
generously attributed it much less to any natural deficiency, than to the
misfortune of a private education; while he himself, though probably
without any particular, any material superiority by nature, merely from
the advantage of a public school, was as well fitted to mix in the world
as any other man.
“Upon my soul,” he added, “I believe it is nothing more; and so I
often tell my mother, when she is grieving about it. ‘My dear Madam,’
I always say to her, ‘you must make yourself easy. The evil is now irre-
mediable, and it has been entirely your own doing. Why would you be
persuaded by my uncle, Sir Robert, against your own judgment, to place
Edward under private tuition, at the most critical time of his life? If
you had only sent him to Westminster as well as myself, instead of send-
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ing him to Mr. Pratt’s, all this would have been prevented.’ This is the
way in which I always consider the matter, and my mother is perfectly
convinced of her error.”
Elinor would not oppose his opinion, because, whatever might be
her general estimation of the advantage of a public school, she could not
think of Edward’s abode in Mr. Pratt’s family, with any satisfaction.
“You reside in Devonshire, I think,”—was his next observation, “in
a cottage near Dawlish.”
Elinor set him right as to its situation; and it seemed rather surpris-
ing to him that anybody could live in Devonshire, without living near
Dawlish. He bestowed his hearty approbation however on their species
of house.
“For my own part,” said he, “I am excessively fond of a cottage;
there is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And
I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and
build one myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive
myself down at any time, and collect a few friends about me, and be
happy. I advise every body who is going to build, to build a cottage. My
friend Lord Courtland came to me the other day on purpose to ask my
advice, and laid before me three different plans of Bonomi’s. I was to
decide on the best of them. ‘My dear Courtland,’ said I, immediately
throwing them all into the fire, ‘do not adopt either of them, but by all
means build a cottage.’ And that I fancy, will be the end of it.
“Some people imagine that there can be no accommodations, no
space in a cottage; but this is all a mistake. I was last month at my
friend Elliott’s, near Dartford. Lady Elliott wished to give a dance. ‘But
how can it be done?’ said she; ‘my dear Ferrars, do tell me how it is to be
managed. There is not a room in this cottage that will hold ten couple,
and where can the supper be?’ I immediately saw that there could be no
difficulty in it, so I said, ‘My dear Lady Elliott, do not be uneasy. The
dining parlour will admit eighteen couple with ease; card-tables may be
placed in the drawing-room; the library may be open for tea and other re-
freshments; and let the supper be set out in the saloon.’ Lady Elliott was
delighted with the thought. We measured the dining-room, and found
it would hold exactly eighteen couple, and the affair was arranged pre-
cisely after my plan. So that, in fact, you see, if people do but know how
to set about it, every comfort may be as well enjoyed in a cottage as in
the most spacious dwelling.”
Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compli-
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her sister’s, for some days, in Harley Street, as soon as Lady Middleton
could spare them. This was enough to make Lucy really and reasonably
happy. Mrs. Dashwood seemed actually working for her, herself; cher-
ishing all her hopes, and promoting all her views! Such an opportunity
of being with Edward and his family was, above all things, the most ma-
terial to her interest, and such an invitation the most gratifying to her
feelings! It was an advantage that could not be too gratefully acknowl-
edged, nor too speedily made use of; and the visit to Lady Middleton,
which had not before had any precise limits, was instantly discovered to
have been always meant to end in two days’ time.
When the note was shown to Elinor, as it was within ten minutes after
its arrival, it gave her, for the first time, some share in the expectations of
Lucy; for such a mark of uncommon kindness, vouchsafed on so short
an acquaintance, seemed to declare that the good-will towards her arose
from something more than merely malice against herself; and might be
brought, by time and address, to do every thing that Lucy wished. Her
flattery had already subdued the pride of Lady Middleton, and made an
entry into the close heart of Mrs. John Dashwood; and these were effects
that laid open the probability of greater.
The Miss Steeles removed to Harley Street, and all that reached Eli-
nor of their influence there, strengthened her expectation of the event.
Sir John, who called on them more than once, brought home such ac-
counts of the favour they were in, as must be universally striking. Mrs.
Dashwood had never been so much pleased with any young women in
her life, as she was with them; had given each of them a needle book
made by some emigrant; called Lucy by her Christian name; and did not
know whether she should ever be able to part with them.
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be sure they will make no difficulty about it;’ and so, away she went to
your sister, who was sitting all alone at her carpet-work, little suspecting
what was to come—for she had just been saying to your brother, only
five minutes before, that she thought to make a match between Edward
and some Lord’s daughter or other, I forget who. So you may think what
a blow it was to all her vanity and pride. She fell into violent hysterics
immediately, with such screams as reached your brother’s ears, as he was
sitting in his own dressing-room down stairs, thinking about writing a
letter to his steward in the country. So up he flew directly, and a ter-
rible scene took place, for Lucy was come to them by that time, little
dreaming what was going on. Poor soul! I pity her. And I must say,
I think she was used very hardly; for your sister scolded like any fury,
and soon drove her into a fainting fit. Nancy, she fell upon her knees,
and cried bitterly; and your brother, he walked about the room, and said
he did not know what to do. Mrs. Dashwood declared they should not
stay a minute longer in the house, and your brother was forced to go
down upon his knees too, to persuade her to let them stay till they had
packed up their clothes. Then she fell into hysterics again, and he was
so frightened that he would send for Mr. Donavan, and Mr. Donavan
found the house in all this uproar. The carriage was at the door ready to
take my poor cousins away, and they were just stepping in as he came
off; poor Lucy in such a condition, he says, she could hardly walk; and
Nancy, she was almost as bad. I declare, I have no patience with your
sister; and I hope, with all my heart, it will be a match in spite of her.
Lord! what a taking poor Mr. Edward will be in when he hears of it! To
have his love used so scornfully! for they say he is monstrous fond of
her, as well he may. I should not wonder, if he was to be in the greatest
passion!—and Mr. Donavan thinks just the same. He and I had a great
deal of talk about it; and the best of all is, that he is gone back again to
Harley Street, that he may be within call when Mrs. Ferrars is told of it,
for she was sent for as soon as ever my cousins left the house, for your
sister was sure she would be in hysterics too; and so she may, for what
I care. I have no pity for either of them. I have no notion of people’s
making such a to-do about money and greatness. There is no reason on
earth why Mr. Edward and Lucy should not marry; for I am sure Mrs.
Ferrars may afford to do very well by her son, and though Lucy has next
to nothing herself, she knows better than any body how to make the
most of every thing; I dare say, if Mrs. Ferrars would only allow him
five hundred a-year, she would make as good an appearance with it as
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any body else would with eight. Lord! how snug they might live in such
another cottage as yours—or a little bigger—with two maids, and two
men; and I believe I could help them to a housemaid, for my Betty has a
sister out of place, that would fit them exactly.”
Here Mrs. Jennings ceased, and as Elinor had had time enough to
collect her thoughts, she was able to give such an answer, and make
such observations, as the subject might naturally be supposed to produce.
Happy to find that she was not suspected of any extraordinary interest
in it; that Mrs. Jennings (as she had of late often hoped might be the
case) had ceased to imagine her at all attached to Edward; and happy
above all the rest, in the absence of Marianne, she felt very well able to
speak of the affair without embarrassment, and to give her judgment, as
she believed, with impartiality on the conduct of every one concerned in
it.
She could hardly determine what her own expectation of its event
really was; though she earnestly tried to drive away the notion of its
being possible to end otherwise at last, than in the marriage of Edward
and Lucy. What Mrs. Ferrars would say and do, though there could
not be a doubt of its nature, she was anxious to hear; and still more
anxious to know how Edward would conduct himself. For him she felt
much compassion;—for Lucy very little—and it cost her some pains to
procure that little;—for the rest of the party none at all.
As Mrs. Jennings could talk on no other subject, Elinor soon saw
the necessity of preparing Marianne for its discussion. No time was to
be lost in undeceiving her, in making her acquainted with the real truth,
and in endeavouring to bring her to hear it talked of by others, without
betraying that she felt any uneasiness for her sister, or any resentment
against Edward.
Elinor’s office was a painful one.—She was going to remove what
she really believed to be her sister’s chief consolation,—to give such par-
ticulars of Edward as she feared would ruin him for ever in her good
opinion,-and to make Marianne, by a resemblance in their situations,
which to her fancy would seem strong, feel all her own disappointment
over again. But unwelcome as such a task must be, it was necessary to
be done, and Elinor therefore hastened to perform it.
She was very far from wishing to dwell on her own feelings, or to rep-
resent herself as suffering much, any otherwise than as the self-command
she had practised since her first knowledge of Edward’s engagement,
might suggest a hint of what was practicable to Marianne. Her narra-
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tion was clear and simple; and though it could not be given without
emotion, it was not accompanied by violent agitation, nor impetuous
grief.—That belonged rather to the hearer, for Marianne listened with
horror, and cried excessively. Elinor was to be the comforter of others
in her own distresses, no less than in theirs; and all the comfort that
could be given by assurances of her own composure of mind, and a very
earnest vindication of Edward from every charge but of imprudence, was
readily offered.
But Marianne for some time would give credit to neither. Edward
seemed a second Willoughby; and acknowledging as Elinor did, that she
had loved him most sincerely, could she feel less than herself! As for Lucy
Steele, she considered her so totally unamiable, so absolutely incapable
of attaching a sensible man, that she could not be persuaded at first to
believe, and afterwards to pardon, any former affection of Edward for
her. She would not even admit it to have been natural; and Elinor left
her to be convinced that it was so, by that which only could convince
her, a better knowledge of mankind.
Her first communication had reached no farther than to state the fact
of the engagement, and the length of time it had existed.—Marianne’s
feelings had then broken in, and put an end to all regularity of detail;
and for some time all that could be done was to soothe her distress,
lessen her alarms, and combat her resentment. The first question on her
side, which led to farther particulars, was,
“How long has this been known to you, Elinor? has he written to
you?”
“I have known it these four months. When Lucy first came to Barton
Park last November, she told me in confidence of her engagement.”
At these words, Marianne’s eyes expressed the astonishment which
her lips could not utter. After a pause of wonder, she exclaimed—
“Four months!—Have you known of this four months?”
Elinor confirmed it.
“What!—while attending me in all my misery, has this been on your
heart?—And I have reproached you for being happy!”—
“It was not fit that you should then know how much I was the re-
verse!”
“Four months!”—cried Marianne again.—“So calm!—so cheerful!—
how have you been supported?”—
“By feeling that I was doing my duty.—My promise to Lucy, obliged
me to be secret. I owed it to her, therefore, to avoid giving any hint of
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the truth; and I owed it to my family and friends, not to create in them
a solicitude about me, which it could not be in my power to satisfy.”
Marianne seemed much struck.
“I have very often wished to undeceive yourself and my mother,”
added Elinor; “and once or twice I have attempted it;—but without be-
traying my trust, I never could have convinced you.”
“Four months!—and yet you loved him!”—
“Yes. But I did not love only him;—and while the comfort of others
was dear to me, I was glad to spare them from knowing how much
I felt. Now, I can think and speak of it with little emotion. I would
not have you suffer on my account; for I assure you I no longer suffer
materially myself. I have many things to support me. I am not conscious
of having provoked the disappointment by any imprudence of my own,
I have borne it as much as possible without spreading it farther. I acquit
Edward of essential misconduct. I wish him very happy; and I am so
sure of his always doing his duty, that though now he may harbour some
regret, in the end he must become so. Lucy does not want sense, and that
is the foundation on which every thing good may be built.—And after all,
Marianne, after all that is bewitching in the idea of a single and constant
attachment, and all that can be said of one’s happiness depending entirely
on any particular person, it is not meant—it is not fit—it is not possible
that it should be so.—Edward will marry Lucy; he will marry a woman
superior in person and understanding to half her sex; and time and habit
will teach him to forget that he ever thought another superior to her.”—
“If such is your way of thinking,” said Marianne, “if the loss of
what is most valued is so easily to be made up by something else, your
resolution, your self-command, are, perhaps, a little less to be wondered
at.—They are brought more within my comprehension.”
“I understand you.—You do not suppose that I have ever felt much.—
For four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind,
without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature; knowing that
it would make you and my mother most unhappy whenever it were ex-
plained to you, yet unable to prepare you for it in the least.—It was told
me,—it was in a manner forced on me by the very person herself, whose
prior engagement ruined all my prospects; and told me, as I thought,
with triumph.—This person’s suspicions, therefore, I have had to op-
pose, by endeavouring to appear indifferent where I have been most
deeply interested;—and it has not been only once;—I have had her hopes
and exultation to listen to again and again.—I have known myself to be
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divided from Edward for ever, without hearing one circumstance that
could make me less desire the connection.—Nothing has proved him un-
worthy; nor has anything declared him indifferent to me.—I have had
to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and the insolence of his
mother; and have suffered the punishment of an attachment, without en-
joying its advantages.—And all this has been going on at a time, when,
as you know too well, it has not been my only unhappiness.—If you can
think me capable of ever feeling—surely you may suppose that I have suf-
fered now. The composure of mind with which I have brought myself at
present to consider the matter, the consolation that I have been willing
to admit, have been the effect of constant and painful exertion;—they
did not spring up of themselves;—they did not occur to relieve my spirits
at first.—No, Marianne.—Then, if I had not been bound to silence, per-
haps nothing could have kept me entirely—not even what I owed to my
dearest friends—from openly shewing that I was very unhappy.”—
Marianne was quite subdued.—
“Oh! Elinor,” she cried, “you have made me hate myself for ever.—
How barbarous have I been to you!—you, who have been my only com-
fort, who have borne with me in all my misery, who have seemed to be
only suffering for me!—Is this my gratitude?—Is this the only return I
can make you?—Because your merit cries out upon myself, I have been
trying to do it away.”
The tenderest caresses followed this confession. In such a frame of
mind as she was now in, Elinor had no difficulty in obtaining from her
whatever promise she required; and at her request, Marianne engaged
never to speak of the affair to any one with the least appearance of
bitterness;—to meet Lucy without betraying the smallest increase of dis-
like to her;—and even to see Edward himself, if chance should bring
them together, without any diminution of her usual cordiality.—These
were great concessions;—but where Marianne felt that she had injured,
no reparation could be too much for her to make.
She performed her promise of being discreet, to admiration.—She
attended to all that Mrs. Jennings had to say upon the subject, with an
unchanging complexion, dissented from her in nothing, and was heard
three times to say, “Yes, ma’am.”—She listened to her praise of Lucy
with only moving from one chair to another, and when Mrs. Jennings
talked of Edward’s affection, it cost her only a spasm in her throat.—
Such advances towards heroism in her sister, made Elinor feel equal to
any thing herself.
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The next morning brought a farther trial of it, in a visit from their
brother, who came with a most serious aspect to talk over the dreadful
affair, and bring them news of his wife.
“You have heard, I suppose,” said he with great solemnity, as soon
as he was seated, “of the very shocking discovery that took place under
our roof yesterday.”
They all looked their assent; it seemed too awful a moment for
speech.
“Your sister,” he continued, “has suffered dreadfully. Mrs. Ferrars
too—in short it has been a scene of such complicated distress—but I
will hope that the storm may be weathered without our being any of us
quite overcome. Poor Fanny! she was in hysterics all yesterday. But I
would not alarm you too much. Donavan says there is nothing materially
to be apprehended; her constitution is a good one, and her resolution
equal to any thing. She has borne it all, with the fortitude of an angel!
She says she never shall think well of anybody again; and one cannot
wonder at it, after being so deceived!—meeting with such ingratitude,
where so much kindness had been shewn, so much confidence had been
placed! It was quite out of the benevolence of her heart, that she had
asked these young women to her house; merely because she thought they
deserved some attention, were harmless, well-behaved girls, and would
be pleasant companions; for otherwise we both wished very much to
have invited you and Marianne to be with us, while your kind friend
there, was attending her daughter. And now to be so rewarded! ‘I wish,
with all my heart,’ says poor Fanny in her affectionate way, ‘that we had
asked your sisters instead of them.’ ”
Here he stopped to be thanked; which being done, he went on.
“What poor Mrs. Ferrars suffered, when first Fanny broke it to her,
is not to be described. While she with the truest affection had been
planning a most eligible connection for him, was it to be supposed that
he could be all the time secretly engaged to another person!—such a
suspicion could never have entered her head! If she suspected any pre-
possession elsewhere, it could not be in that quarter. ‘There, to be sure,’
said she, ‘I might have thought myself safe.’ She was quite in an agony.
We consulted together, however, as to what should be done, and at last
she determined to send for Edward. He came. But I am sorry to relate
what ensued. All that Mrs. Ferrars could say to make him put an end to
the engagement, assisted too as you may well suppose by my arguments,
and Fanny’s entreaties, was of no avail. Duty, affection, every thing was
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JANE AUSTEN
Mrs. Ferrars’s conduct throughout the whole, has been such as every
conscientious, good mother, in like circumstances, would adopt. It has
been dignified and liberal. Edward has drawn his own lot, and I fear it
will be a bad one.”
Marianne sighed out her similar apprehension; and Elinor’s heart
wrung for the feelings of Edward, while braving his mother’s threats,
for a woman who could not reward him.
“Well, sir,” said Mrs. Jennings, “and how did it end?”
“I am sorry to say, ma’am, in a most unhappy rupture:—Edward is
dismissed for ever from his mother’s notice. He left her house yesterday,
but where he is gone, or whether he is still in town, I do not know; for
we of course can make no inquiry.”
“Poor young man!—and what is to become of him?”
“What, indeed, ma’am! It is a melancholy consideration. Born to the
prospect of such affluence! I cannot conceive a situation more deplorable.
The interest of two thousand pounds—how can a man live on it?—and
when to that is added the recollection, that he might, but for his own
folly, within three months have been in the receipt of two thousand, five
hundred a-year (for Miss Morton has thirty thousand pounds,) I cannot
picture to myself a more wretched condition. We must all feel for him;
and the more so, because it is totally out of our power to assist him.”
“Poor young man!” cried Mrs. Jennings, “I am sure he should be
very welcome to bed and board at my house; and so I would tell him if
I could see him. It is not fit that he should be living about at his own
charge now, at lodgings and taverns.”
Elinor’s heart thanked her for such kindness towards Edward, though
she could not forbear smiling at the form of it.
“If he would only have done as well by himself,” said John Dash-
wood, “as all his friends were disposed to do by him, he might now have
been in his proper situation, and would have wanted for nothing. But as
it is, it must be out of anybody’s power to assist him. And there is one
thing more preparing against him, which must be worse than all—his
mother has determined, with a very natural kind of spirit, to settle that
estate upon Robert immediately, which might have been Edward’s, on
proper conditions. I left her this morning with her lawyer, talking over
the business.”
“Well!” said Mrs. Jennings, “that is her revenge. Everybody has a
way of their own. But I don’t think mine would be, to make one son
independent, because another had plagued me.”
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Chapter 38
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JANE AUSTEN
more.
Nothing new was heard by them, for a day or two afterwards, of
affairs in Harley Street, or Bartlett’s Buildings. But though so much of
the matter was known to them already, that Mrs. Jennings might have
had enough to do in spreading that knowledge farther, without seeking
after more, she had resolved from the first to pay a visit of comfort
and inquiry to her cousins as soon as she could; and nothing but the
hindrance of more visitors than usual, had prevented her going to them
within that time.
The third day succeeding their knowledge of the particulars, was so
fine, so beautiful a Sunday as to draw many to Kensington Gardens,
though it was only the second week in March. Mrs. Jennings and Elinor
were of the number; but Marianne, who knew that the Willoughbys were
again in town, and had a constant dread of meeting them, chose rather
to stay at home, than venture into so public a place.
An intimate acquaintance of Mrs. Jennings joined them soon after
they entered the Gardens, and Elinor was not sorry that by her contin-
uing with them, and engaging all Mrs. Jennings’s conversation, she was
herself left to quiet reflection. She saw nothing of the Willoughbys, noth-
ing of Edward, and for some time nothing of anybody who could by
any chance whether grave or gay, be interesting to her. But at last she
found herself with some surprise, accosted by Miss Steele, who, though
looking rather shy, expressed great satisfaction in meeting them, and on
receiving encouragement from the particular kindness of Mrs. Jennings,
left her own party for a short time, to join their’s. Mrs. Jennings imme-
diately whispered to Elinor,
“Get it all out of her, my dear. She will tell you any thing if you ask.
You see I cannot leave Mrs. Clarke.”
It was lucky, however, for Mrs. Jennings’s curiosity and Elinor’s too,
that she would tell any thing without being asked; for nothing would
otherwise have been learnt.
“I am so glad to meet you;” said Miss Steele, taking her familiarly by
the arm—“for I wanted to see you of all things in the world.” And then
lowering her voice, “I suppose Mrs. Jennings has heard all about it. Is
she angry?”
“Not at all, I believe, with you.”
“That is a good thing. And Lady Middleton, is she angry?”
“I cannot suppose it possible that she should.”
“I am monstrous glad of it. Good gracious! I have had such a time
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of it! I never saw Lucy in such a rage in my life. She vowed at first
she would never trim me up a new bonnet, nor do any thing else for me
again, so long as she lived; but now she is quite come to, and we are as
good friends as ever. Look, she made me this bow to my hat, and put in
the feather last night. There now, you are going to laugh at me too. But
why should not I wear pink ribbons? I do not care if it is the Doctor’s
favourite colour. I am sure, for my part, I should never have known he
did like it better than any other colour, if he had not happened to say
so. My cousins have been so plaguing me! I declare sometimes I do not
know which way to look before them.”
She had wandered away to a subject on which Elinor had nothing to
say, and therefore soon judged it expedient to find her way back again
to the first.
“Well, but Miss Dashwood,” speaking triumphantly, “people may
say what they chuse about Mr. Ferrars’s declaring he would not have
Lucy, for it is no such thing I can tell you; and it is quite a shame for
such ill-natured reports to be spread abroad. Whatever Lucy might think
about it herself, you know, it was no business of other people to set it
down for certain.”
“I never heard any thing of the kind hinted at before, I assure you,”
said Elinor.
“Oh, did not you? But it was said, I know, very well, and by more
than one; for Miss Godby told Miss Sparks, that nobody in their senses
could expect Mr. Ferrars to give up a woman like Miss Morton, with
thirty thousand pounds to her fortune, for Lucy Steele that had nothing
at all; and I had it from Miss Sparks myself. And besides that, my cousin
Richard said himself, that when it came to the point he was afraid Mr.
Ferrars would be off; and when Edward did not come near us for three
days, I could not tell what to think myself; and I believe in my heart Lucy
gave it up all for lost; for we came away from your brother’s Wednesday,
and we saw nothing of him not all Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and
did not know what was become of him. Once Lucy thought to write
to him, but then her spirits rose against that. However this morning he
came just as we came home from church; and then it all came out, how
he had been sent for Wednesday to Harley Street, and been talked to by
his mother and all of them, and how he had declared before them all
that he loved nobody but Lucy, and nobody but Lucy would he have.
And how he had been so worried by what passed, that as soon as he had
went away from his mother’s house, he had got upon his horse, and rid
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into the country, some where or other; and how he had stayed about at
an inn all Thursday and Friday, on purpose to get the better of it. And
after thinking it all over and over again, he said, it seemed to him as if,
now he had no fortune, and no nothing at all, it would be quite unkind
to keep her on to the engagement, because it must be for her loss, for he
had nothing but two thousand pounds, and no hope of any thing else;
and if he was to go into orders, as he had some thoughts, he could get
nothing but a curacy, and how was they to live upon that?—He could
not bear to think of her doing no better, and so he begged, if she had
the least mind for it, to put an end to the matter directly, and leave him
shift for himself. I heard him say all this as plain as could possibly be.
And it was entirely for her sake, and upon her account, that he said a
word about being off, and not upon his own. I will take my oath he
never dropt a syllable of being tired of her, or of wishing to marry Miss
Morton, or any thing like it. But, to be sure, Lucy would not give ear
to such kind of talking; so she told him directly (with a great deal about
sweet and love, you know, and all that—Oh, la! one can’t repeat such
kind of things you know)—she told him directly, she had not the least
mind in the world to be off, for she could live with him upon a trifle, and
how little so ever he might have, she should be very glad to have it all,
you know, or something of the kind. So then he was monstrous happy,
and talked on some time about what they should do, and they agreed
he should take orders directly, and they must wait to be married till he
got a living. And just then I could not hear any more, for my cousin
called from below to tell me Mrs. Richardson was come in her coach,
and would take one of us to Kensington Gardens; so I was forced to go
into the room and interrupt them, to ask Lucy if she would like to go,
but she did not care to leave Edward; so I just run up stairs and put on
a pair of silk stockings and came off with the Richardsons.”
“I do not understand what you mean by interrupting them,” said
Elinor; “you were all in the same room together, were not you?”
“No, indeed, not us. La! Miss Dashwood, do you think people make
love when any body else is by? Oh, for shame!—To be sure you must
know better than that. (Laughing affectedly.)—No, no; they were shut
up in the drawing-room together, and all I heard was only by listening at
the door.”
“How!” cried Elinor; “have you been repeating to me what you only
learnt yourself by listening at the door? I am sorry I did not know it
before; for I certainly would not have suffered you to give me particulars
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JANE AUSTEN
Remember me kindly to her. La! if you have not got your spotted muslin
on!—I wonder you was not afraid of its being torn.”
Such was her parting concern; for after this, she had time only to
pay her farewell compliments to Mrs. Jennings, before her company was
claimed by Mrs. Richardson; and Elinor was left in possession of knowl-
edge which might feed her powers of reflection some time, though she
had learnt very little more than what had been already foreseen and fore-
planned in her own mind. Edward’s marriage with Lucy was as firmly
determined on, and the time of its taking place remained as absolutely
uncertain, as she had concluded it would be;—every thing depended, ex-
actly after her expectation, on his getting that preferment, of which, at
present, there seemed not the smallest chance.
As soon as they returned to the carriage, Mrs. Jennings was eager for
information; but as Elinor wished to spread as little as possible intelli-
gence that had in the first place been so unfairly obtained, she confined
herself to the brief repetition of such simple particulars, as she felt as-
sured that Lucy, for the sake of her own consequence, would choose to
have known. The continuance of their engagement, and the means that
were able to be taken for promoting its end, was all her communication;
and this produced from Mrs. Jennings the following natural remark.
“Wait for his having a living!—ay, we all know how that will end:—
they will wait a twelvemonth, and finding no good comes of it, will
set down upon a curacy of fifty pounds a-year, with the interest of his
two thousand pounds, and what little matter Mr. Steele and Mr. Pratt
can give her.—Then they will have a child every year! and Lord help
’em! how poor they will be!—I must see what I can give them towards
furnishing their house. Two maids and two men, indeed!—as I talked
of t’other day.—No, no, they must get a stout girl of all works.—Betty’s
sister would never do for them now.”
The next morning brought Elinor a letter by the two-penny post from
Lucy herself. It was as follows:
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always be in one another’s love. We have had great trials, and great per-
secutions, but however, at the same time, gratefully acknowledge many
friends, yourself not the least among them, whose great kindness I shall
always thankfully remember, as will Edward too, who I have told of it. I
am sure you will be glad to hear, as likewise dear Mrs. Jennings, I spent
two happy hours with him yesterday afternoon, he would not hear of
our parting, though earnestly did I, as I thought my duty required, urge
him to it for prudence sake, and would have parted for ever on the spot,
would he consent to it; but he said it should never be, he did not regard
his mother’s anger, while he could have my affections; our prospects are
not very bright, to be sure, but we must wait, and hope for the best; he
will be ordained shortly; and should it ever be in your power to recom-
mend him to any body that has a living to bestow, am very sure you will
not forget us, and dear Mrs. Jennings too, trust she will speak a good
word for us to Sir John, or Mr. Palmer, or any friend that may be able
to assist us.—Poor Anne was much to blame for what she did, but she
did it for the best, so I say nothing; hope Mrs. Jennings won’t think it
too much trouble to give us a call, should she come this way any morn-
ing, ’twould be a great kindness, and my cousins would be proud to
know her.—My paper reminds me to conclude; and begging to be most
gratefully and respectfully remembered to her, and to Sir John, and Lady
Middleton, and the dear children, when you chance to see them, and
love to Miss Marianne,
“I am, &c.”
As soon as Elinor had finished it, she performed what she concluded
to be its writer’s real design, by placing it in the hands of Mrs. Jennings,
who read it aloud with many comments of satisfaction and praise.
“Very well indeed!—how prettily she writes!—aye, that was quite
proper to let him be off if he would. That was just like Lucy.—Poor
soul! I wish I could get him a living, with all my heart.—She calls me
dear Mrs. Jennings, you see. She is a good-hearted girl as ever lived.—
Very well upon my word. That sentence is very prettily turned. Yes, yes,
I will go and see her, sure enough. How attentive she is, to think of every
body!—Thank you, my dear, for shewing it me. It is as pretty a letter as
ever I saw, and does Lucy’s head and heart great credit.”
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Chapter 39
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easily come there to attend them down; and as there could be no occa-
sion of their staying above a week at Cleveland, they might now be at
home in little more than three weeks’ time. As Marianne’s affection for
her mother was sincere, it must triumph with little difficulty, over the
imaginary evils she had started.
Mrs. Jennings was so far from being weary of her guest, that she
pressed them very earnestly to return with her again from Cleveland.
Elinor was grateful for the attention, but it could not alter her design;
and their mother’s concurrence being readily gained, every thing relative
to their return was arranged as far as it could be;—and Marianne found
some relief in drawing up a statement of the hours that were yet to divide
her from Barton.
“Ah! Colonel, I do not know what you and I shall do without the
Miss Dashwoods;”—was Mrs. Jennings’s address to him when he first
called on her, after their leaving her was settled—“for they are quite
resolved upon going home from the Palmers;—and how forlorn we shall
be, when I come back!—Lord! we shall sit and gape at one another as
dull as two cats.”
Perhaps Mrs. Jennings was in hopes, by this vigorous sketch of their
future ennui, to provoke him to make that offer, which might give him-
self an escape from it;—and if so, she had soon afterwards good reason
to think her object gained; for, on Elinor’s moving to the window to
take more expeditiously the dimensions of a print, which she was going
to copy for her friend, he followed her to it with a look of particular
meaning, and conversed with her there for several minutes. The effect
of his discourse on the lady too, could not escape her observation, for
though she was too honorable to listen, and had even changed her seat,
on purpose that she might not hear, to one close by the piano forte on
which Marianne was playing, she could not keep herself from seeing
that Elinor changed colour, attended with agitation, and was too intent
on what he said to pursue her employment.—Still farther in confirma-
tion of her hopes, in the interval of Marianne’s turning from one lesson
to another, some words of the Colonel’s inevitably reached her ear, in
which he seemed to be apologising for the badness of his house. This
set the matter beyond a doubt. She wondered, indeed, at his thinking it
necessary to do so; but supposed it to be the proper etiquette. What Eli-
nor said in reply she could not distinguish, but judged from the motion
of her lips, that she did not think that any material objection;—and Mrs.
Jennings commended her in her heart for being so honest. They then
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talked on for a few minutes longer without her catching a syllable, when
another lucky stop in Marianne’s performance brought her these words
in the Colonel’s calm voice,—
“I am afraid it cannot take place very soon.”
Astonished and shocked at so unlover-like a speech, she was almost
ready to cry out, “Lord! what should hinder it?”—but checking her
desire, confined herself to this silent ejaculation.
“This is very strange!—sure he need not wait to be older.”
This delay on the Colonel’s side, however, did not seem to offend
or mortify his fair companion in the least, for on their breaking up the
conference soon afterwards, and moving different ways, Mrs. Jennings
very plainly heard Elinor say, and with a voice which shewed her to feel
what she said,
“I shall always think myself very much obliged to you.”
Mrs. Jennings was delighted with her gratitude, and only wondered
that after hearing such a sentence, the Colonel should be able to take
leave of them, as he immediately did, with the utmost sang-froid, and
go away without making her any reply!—She had not thought her old
friend could have made so indifferent a suitor.
What had really passed between them was to this effect.
“I have heard,” said he, with great compassion, “of the injustice your
friend Mr. Ferrars has suffered from his family; for if I understand the
matter right, he has been entirely cast off by them for persevering in his
engagement with a very deserving young woman.—Have I been rightly
informed?—Is it so?—”
Elinor told him that it was.
“The cruelty, the impolitic cruelty,”—he replied, with great feeling,—
“of dividing, or attempting to divide, two young people long attached
to each other, is terrible.—Mrs. Ferrars does not know what she may
be doing—what she may drive her son to. I have seen Mr. Ferrars two
or three times in Harley Street, and am much pleased with him. He
is not a young man with whom one can be intimately acquainted in
a short time, but I have seen enough of him to wish him well for his
own sake, and as a friend of yours, I wish it still more. I understand
that he intends to take orders. Will you be so good as to tell him that
the living of Delaford, now just vacant, as I am informed by this day’s
post, is his, if he think it worth his acceptance—but that, perhaps, so
unfortunately circumstanced as he is now, it may be nonsense to appear
to doubt; I only wish it were more valuable.— It is a rectory, but a small
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one; the late incumbent, I believe, did not make more than £200 per
annum, and though it is certainly capable of improvement, I fear, not to
such an amount as to afford him a very comfortable income. Such as it
is, however, my pleasure in presenting him to it, will be very great. Pray
assure him of it.”
Elinor’s astonishment at this commission could hardly have been
greater, had the Colonel been really making her an offer of his hand.
The preferment, which only two days before she had considered as hope-
less for Edward, was already provided to enable him to marry;—and
she, of all people in the world, was fixed on to bestow it!—Her emotion
was such as Mrs. Jennings had attributed to a very different cause;—but
whatever minor feelings less pure, less pleasing, might have a share in
that emotion, her esteem for the general benevolence, and her gratitude
for the particular friendship, which together prompted Colonel Brandon
to this act, were strongly felt, and warmly expressed. She thanked him
for it with all her heart, spoke of Edward’s principles and disposition
with that praise which she knew them to deserve; and promised to un-
dertake the commission with pleasure, if it were really his wish to put
off so agreeable an office to another. But at the same time, she could not
help thinking that no one could so well perform it as himself. It was an
office in short, from which, unwilling to give Edward the pain of receiv-
ing an obligation from her, she would have been very glad to be spared
herself;—but Colonel Brandon, on motives of equal delicacy, declining
it likewise, still seemed so desirous of its being given through her means,
that she would not on any account make farther opposition. Edward,
she believed, was still in town, and fortunately she had heard his address
from Miss Steele. She could undertake therefore to inform him of it, in
the course of the day. After this had been settled, Colonel Brandon began
to talk of his own advantage in securing so respectable and agreeable a
neighbour, and then it was that he mentioned with regret, that the house
was small and indifferent;—an evil which Elinor, as Mrs. Jennings had
supposed her to do, made very light of, at least as far as regarded its size.
“The smallness of the house,” said she, “I cannot imagine any in-
convenience to them, for it will be in proportion to their family and
income.”
By which the Colonel was surprised to find that she was considering
Mr. Ferrars’s marriage as the certain consequence of the presentation; for
he did not suppose it possible that Delaford living could supply such an
income, as anybody in his style of life would venture to settle on—and
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he said so.
“This little rectory can do no more than make Mr. Ferrars comfort-
able as a bachelor; it cannot enable him to marry. I am sorry to say that
my patronage ends with this; and my interest is hardly more extensive.
If, however, by an unforeseen chance it should be in my power to serve
him farther, I must think very differently of him from what I now do, if I
am not as ready to be useful to him then as I sincerely wish I could be at
present. What I am now doing indeed, seems nothing at all, since it can
advance him so little towards what must be his principal, his only object
of happiness. His marriage must still be a distant good;—at least, I am
afraid it cannot take place very soon.—”
Such was the sentence which, when misunderstood, so justly of-
fended the delicate feelings of Mrs. Jennings; but after this narration
of what really passed between Colonel Brandon and Elinor, while they
stood at the window, the gratitude expressed by the latter on their part-
ing, may perhaps appear in general, not less reasonably excited, nor less
properly worded than if it had arisen from an offer of marriage.
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will soon find an opportunity. Well, my dear, I wish you joy of it again
and again; and if ever there was a happy couple in the world, I think I
shall soon know where to look for them.”
“You mean to go to Delaford after them I suppose,” said Elinor, with
a faint smile.
“Aye, my dear, that I do, indeed. And as to the house being a bad
one, I do not know what the Colonel would be at, for it is as good a one
as ever I saw.”
“He spoke of its being out of repair.”
“Well, and whose fault is that? why don’t he repair it?—who should
do it but himself?”
They were interrupted by the servant’s coming in to announce the
carriage being at the door; and Mrs. Jennings immediately preparing to
go, said,—
“Well, my dear, I must be gone before I have had half my talk out.
But, however, we may have it all over in the evening; for we shall be
quite alone. I do not ask you to go with me, for I dare say your mind is
too full of the matter to care for company; and besides, you must long
to tell your sister all about it.”
Marianne had left the room before the conversation began.
“Certainly, ma’am, I shall tell Marianne of it; but I shall not mention
it at present to any body else.”
“Oh! very well,” said Mrs. Jennings rather disappointed. “Then you
would not have me tell it to Lucy, for I think of going as far as Holborn
to-day.”
“No, ma’am, not even Lucy if you please. One day’s delay will not
be very material; and till I have written to Mr. Ferrars, I think it ought
not to be mentioned to any body else. I shall do that directly. It is of
importance that no time should be lost with him, for he will of course
have much to do relative to his ordination.”
This speech at first puzzled Mrs. Jennings exceedingly. Why Mr. Fer-
rars was to have been written to about it in such a hurry, she could
not immediately comprehend. A few moments’ reflection, however, pro-
duced a very happy idea, and she exclaimed;—
“Oh, ho!—I understand you. Mr. Ferrars is to be the man. Well, so
much the better for him. Ay, to be sure, he must be ordained in readiness;
and I am very glad to find things are so forward between you. But, my
dear, is not this rather out of character? Should not the Colonel write
himself?—sure, he is the proper person.”
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piness in every change of situation that might befall him; on his, with
rather an attempt to return the same good will, than the power of ex-
pressing it.
“When I see him again,” said Elinor to herself, as the door shut him
out, “I shall see him the husband of Lucy.”
And with this pleasing anticipation, she sat down to reconsider the
past, recall the words and endeavour to comprehend all the feelings of
Edward; and, of course, to reflect on her own with discontent.
When Mrs. Jennings came home, though she returned from seeing
people whom she had never seen before, and of whom therefore she
must have a great deal to say, her mind was so much more occupied by
the important secret in her possession, than by anything else, that she
reverted to it again as soon as Elinor appeared.
“Well, my dear,” she cried, “I sent you up to the young man. Did
not I do right?—And I suppose you had no great difficulty—You did not
find him very unwilling to accept your proposal?”
“No, ma’am; that was not very likely.”
“Well, and how soon will he be ready?—For it seems all to depend
upon that.”
“Really,” said Elinor, “I know so little of these kind of forms, that I
can hardly even conjecture as to the time, or the preparation necessary;
but I suppose two or three months will complete his ordination.”
“Two or three months!” cried Mrs. Jennings; “Lord! my dear, how
calmly you talk of it; and can the Colonel wait two or three months!
Lord bless me!—I am sure it would put me quite out of patience!—And
though one would be very glad to do a kindness by poor Mr. Ferrars, I
do think it is not worth while to wait two or three months for him. Sure
somebody else might be found that would do as well; somebody that is
in orders already.”
“My dear ma’am,” said Elinor, “what can you be thinking of?—Why,
Colonel Brandon’s only object is to be of use to Mr. Ferrars.”
“Lord bless you, my dear!—Sure you do not mean to persuade me
that the Colonel only marries you for the sake of giving ten guineas to
Mr. Ferrars!”
The deception could not continue after this; and an explanation im-
mediately took place, by which both gained considerable amusement for
the moment, without any material loss of happiness to either, for Mrs.
Jennings only exchanged one form of delight for another, and still with-
out forfeiting her expectation of the first.
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“Aye, aye, the parsonage is but a small one,” said she, after the first
ebullition of surprise and satisfaction was over, “and very likely may be
out of repair; but to hear a man apologising, as I thought, for a house
that to my knowledge has five sitting rooms on the ground-floor, and
I think the housekeeper told me could make up fifteen beds!—and to
you too, that had been used to live in Barton cottage!—It seems quite
ridiculous. But, my dear, we must touch up the Colonel to do some
thing to the parsonage, and make it comfortable for them, before Lucy
goes to it.”
“But Colonel Brandon does not seem to have any idea of the living’s
being enough to allow them to marry.”
“The Colonel is a ninny, my dear; because he has two thousand a-
year himself, he thinks that nobody else can marry on less. Take my word
for it, that, if I am alive, I shall be paying a visit at Delaford Parsonage
before Michaelmas; and I am sure I sha’nt go if Lucy an’t there.”
Elinor was quite of her opinion, as to the probability of their not
waiting for any thing more.
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as far as she possibly could, of his servants, his carriage, his cows, and
his poultry.
It was now above a week since John Dashwood had called in Berkeley
Street, and as since that time no notice had been taken by them of his
wife’s indisposition, beyond one verbal enquiry, Elinor began to feel it
necessary to pay her a visit.—This was an obligation, however, which
not only opposed her own inclination, but which had not the assistance
of any encouragement from her companions. Marianne, not contented
with absolutely refusing to go herself, was very urgent to prevent her
sister’s going at all; and Mrs. Jennings, though her carriage was always
at Elinor’s service, so very much disliked Mrs. John Dashwood, that not
even her curiosity to see how she looked after the late discovery, nor her
strong desire to affront her by taking Edward’s part, could overcome her
unwillingness to be in her company again. The consequence was, that
Elinor set out by herself to pay a visit, for which no one could really
have less inclination, and to run the risk of a tête-à-tête with a woman,
whom neither of the others had so much reason to dislike.
Mrs. Dashwood was denied; but before the carriage could turn from
the house, her husband accidentally came out. He expressed great plea-
sure in meeting Elinor, told her that he had been just going to call in
Berkeley Street, and, assuring her that Fanny would be very glad to see
her, invited her to come in.
They walked up stairs in to the drawing-room.—Nobody was there.
“Fanny is in her own room, I suppose,” said he:—“I will go to her
presently, for I am sure she will not have the least objection in the world
to seeing you.—Very far from it, indeed. Now especially there cannot
be—but however, you and Marianne were always great favourites.—
Why would not Marianne come?”—
Elinor made what excuse she could for her.
“I am not sorry to see you alone,” he replied, “for I have a good deal
to say to you. This living of Colonel Brandon’s—can it be true?—has
he really given it to Edward?—I heard it yesterday by chance, and was
coming to you on purpose to enquire farther about it.”
“It is perfectly true.—Colonel Brandon has given the living of De-
laford to Edward.”
“Really!—Well, this is very astonishing!—no relationship!—no con-
nection between them!—and now that livings fetch such a price!—what
was the value of this?”
“About two hundred a year.”
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thing that befalls him.—She would not be so weak as to throw away the
comfort of a child, and yet retain the anxiety of a parent!”
“Ah! Elinor,” said John, “your reasoning is very good, but it is
founded on ignorance of human nature. When Edward’s unhappy match
takes place, depend upon it his mother will feel as much as if she had
never discarded him; and, therefore every circumstance that may acceler-
ate that dreadful event, must be concealed from her as much as possible.
Mrs. Ferrars can never forget that Edward is her son.”
“You surprise me; I should think it must nearly have escaped her
memory by this time.”
“You wrong her exceedingly. Mrs. Ferrars is one of the most affec-
tionate mothers in the world.”
Elinor was silent.
“We think now,”—said Mr. Dashwood, after a short pause, “of
Robert’s marrying Miss Morton.”
Elinor, smiling at the grave and decisive importance of her brother’s
tone, calmly replied,
“The lady, I suppose, has no choice in the affair.”
“Choice!—how do you mean?”
“I only mean that I suppose, from your manner of speaking, it must
be the same to Miss Morton whether she marry Edward or Robert.”
“Certainly, there can be no difference; for Robert will now to all
intents and purposes be considered as the eldest son;—and as to any
thing else, they are both very agreeable young men: I do not know that
one is superior to the other.”
Elinor said no more, and John was also for a short time silent.—His
reflections ended thus.
“Of one thing, my dear sister,” kindly taking her hand, and speaking
in an awful whisper,—“I may assure you;—and I will do it, because I
know it must gratify you. I have good reason to think—indeed I have it
from the best authority, or I should not repeat it, for otherwise it would
be very wrong to say any thing about it—but I have it from the very best
authority—not that I ever precisely heard Mrs. Ferrars say it herself—
but her daughter did, and I have it from her—That in short, whatever
objections there might be against a certain—a certain connection—you
understand me—it would have been far preferable to her, it would not
have given her half the vexation that this does. I was exceedingly pleased
to hear that Mrs. Ferrars considered it in that light—a very gratifying
circumstance you know to us all. ‘It would have been beyond compari-
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JANE AUSTEN
son,’ she said, ‘the least evil of the two, and she would be glad to com-
pound now for nothing worse.’ But however, all that is quite out of the
question—not to be thought of or mentioned—as to any attachment you
know—it never could be—all that is gone by. But I thought I would just
tell you of this, because I knew how much it must please you. Not that
you have any reason to regret, my dear Elinor. There is no doubt of
your doing exceedingly well—quite as well, or better, perhaps, all things
considered. Has Colonel Brandon been with you lately?”
Elinor had heard enough, if not to gratify her vanity, and raise her
self-importance, to agitate her nerves and fill her mind;—and she was
therefore glad to be spared from the necessity of saying much in reply
herself, and from the danger of hearing any thing more from her brother,
by the entrance of Mr. Robert Ferrars. After a few moments’ chat, John
Dashwood, recollecting that Fanny was yet uninformed of her sister’s be-
ing there, quitted the room in quest of her; and Elinor was left to improve
her acquaintance with Robert, who, by the gay unconcern, the happy
self-complacency of his manner while enjoying so unfair a division of
his mother’s love and liberality, to the prejudice of his banished brother,
earned only by his own dissipated course of life, and that brother’s in-
tegrity, was confirming her most unfavourable opinion of his head and
heart.
They had scarcely been two minutes by themselves, before he began
to speak of Edward; for he, too, had heard of the living, and was very
inquisitive on the subject. Elinor repeated the particulars of it, as she
had given them to John; and their effect on Robert, though very differ-
ent, was not less striking than it had been on him. He laughed most
immoderately. The idea of Edward’s being a clergyman, and living in
a small parsonage-house, diverted him beyond measure;—and when to
that was added the fanciful imagery of Edward reading prayers in a white
surplice, and publishing the banns of marriage between John Smith and
Mary Brown, he could conceive nothing more ridiculous.
Elinor, while she waited in silence and immovable gravity, the conclu-
sion of such folly, could not restrain her eyes from being fixed on him
with a look that spoke all the contempt it excited. It was a look, however,
very well bestowed, for it relieved her own feelings, and gave no intelli-
gence to him. He was recalled from wit to wisdom, not by any reproof
of her’s, but by his own sensibility.
“We may treat it as a joke,” said he, at last, recovering from the af-
fected laugh which had considerably lengthened out the genuine gaiety
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JANE AUSTEN
trance of Mrs. John Dashwood put an end to the subject. But though
she never spoke of it out of her own family, Elinor could see its influence
on her mind, in the something like confusion of countenance with which
she entered, and an attempt at cordiality in her behaviour to herself. She
even proceeded so far as to be concerned to find that Elinor and her sister
were so soon to leave town, as she had hoped to see more of them;—an
exertion in which her husband, who attended her into the room, and
hung enamoured over her accents, seemed to distinguish every thing that
was most affectionate and graceful.
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JANE AUSTEN
the morning was easily whiled away, in lounging round the kitchen
garden, examining the bloom upon its walls, and listening to the gar-
dener’s lamentations upon blights, in dawdling through the green-house,
where the loss of her favourite plants, unwarily exposed, and nipped
by the lingering frost, raised the laughter of Charlotte,—and in visiting
her poultry-yard, where, in the disappointed hopes of her dairy-maid,
by hens forsaking their nests, or being stolen by a fox, or in the rapid
decrease of a promising young brood, she found fresh sources of merri-
ment.
The morning was fine and dry, and Marianne, in her plan of em-
ployment abroad, had not calculated for any change of weather during
their stay at Cleveland. With great surprise therefore, did she find herself
prevented by a settled rain from going out again after dinner. She had
depended on a twilight walk to the Grecian temple, and perhaps all over
the grounds, and an evening merely cold or damp would not have de-
terred her from it; but a heavy and settled rain even she could not fancy
dry or pleasant weather for walking.
Their party was small, and the hours passed quietly away. Mrs.
Palmer had her child, and Mrs. Jennings her carpet-work; they talked
of the friends they had left behind, arranged Lady Middleton’s engage-
ments, and wondered whether Mr. Palmer and Colonel Brandon would
get farther than Reading that night. Elinor, however little concerned in
it, joined in their discourse; and Marianne, who had the knack of finding
her way in every house to the library, however it might be avoided by the
family in general, soon procured herself a book.
Nothing was wanting on Mrs. Palmer’s side that constant and
friendly good humour could do, to make them feel themselves welcome.
The openness and heartiness of her manner more than atoned for that
want of recollection and elegance which made her often deficient in the
forms of politeness; her kindness, recommended by so pretty a face, was
engaging; her folly, though evident was not disgusting, because it was
not conceited; and Elinor could have forgiven every thing but her laugh.
The two gentlemen arrived the next day to a very late dinner, afford-
ing a pleasant enlargement of the party, and a very welcome variety to
their conversation, which a long morning of the same continued rain had
reduced very low.
Elinor had seen so little of Mr. Palmer, and in that little had seen so
much variety in his address to her sister and herself, that she knew not
what to expect to find him in his own family. She found him, however,
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perfectly the gentleman in his behaviour to all his visitors, and only occa-
sionally rude to his wife and her mother; she found him very capable of
being a pleasant companion, and only prevented from being so always,
by too great an aptitude to fancy himself as much superior to people in
general, as he must feel himself to be to Mrs. Jennings and Charlotte. For
the rest of his character and habits, they were marked, as far as Elinor
could perceive, with no traits at all unusual in his sex and time of life. He
was nice in his eating, uncertain in his hours; fond of his child, though
affecting to slight it; and idled away the mornings at billiards, which
ought to have been devoted to business. She liked him, however, upon
the whole, much better than she had expected, and in her heart was not
sorry that she could like him no more;—not sorry to be driven by the
observation of his Epicurism, his selfishness, and his conceit, to rest with
complacency on the remembrance of Edward’s generous temper, simple
taste, and diffident feelings.
Of Edward, or at least of some of his concerns, she now received in-
telligence from Colonel Brandon, who had been into Dorsetshire lately;
and who, treating her at once as the disinterested friend of Mr. Ferrars,
and the kind of confidant of himself, talked to her a great deal of the
parsonage at Delaford, described its deficiencies, and told her what he
meant to do himself towards removing them.—His behaviour to her in
this, as well as in every other particular, his open pleasure in meeting her
after an absence of only ten days, his readiness to converse with her, and
his deference for her opinion, might very well justify Mrs. Jennings’s per-
suasion of his attachment, and would have been enough, perhaps, had
not Elinor still, as from the first, believed Marianne his real favourite, to
make her suspect it herself. But as it was, such a notion had scarcely ever
entered her head, except by Mrs. Jennings’s suggestion; and she could
not help believing herself the nicest observer of the two;—she watched
his eyes, while Mrs. Jennings thought only of his behaviour;—and while
his looks of anxious solicitude on Marianne’s feeling, in her head and
throat, the beginning of a heavy cold, because unexpressed by words, en-
tirely escaped the latter lady’s observation;—she could discover in them
the quick feelings, and needless alarm of a lover.
Two delighful twilight walks on the third and fourth evenings of her
being there, not merely on the dry gravel of the shrubbery, but all over
the grounds, and especially in the most distant parts of them, where there
was something more of wildness than in the rest, where the trees were the
oldest, and the grass was the longest and wettest, had—assisted by the
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Chapter 43
M ARIANNE got up the next morning at her usual time; to every in-
quiry replied that she was better, and tried to prove herself so, by engag-
ing in her accustomary employments. But a day spent in sitting shivering
over the fire with a book in her hand, which she was unable to read, or in
lying, weary and languid, on a sofa, did not speak much in favour of her
amendment; and when, at last, she went early to bed, more and more in-
disposed, Colonel Brandon was only astonished at her sister’s composure,
who, though attending and nursing her the whole day, against Marianne
inclination, and forcing proper medicines on her at night, trusted, like
Marianne, to the certainty and efficacy of sleep, and felt no real alarm.
A very restless and feverish night, however, disappointed the expec-
tation of both; and when Marianne, after persisting in rising, confessed
herself unable to sit up, and returned voluntarily to her bed, Elinor was
very ready to adopt Mrs. Jennings’s advice, of sending for the Palmers’
apothecary.
He came, examined his patient, and though encouraging Miss Dash-
wood to expect that a very few days would restore her sister to health,
yet, by pronouncing her disorder to have a putrid tendency, and allowing
the word “infection” to pass his lips, gave instant alarm to Mrs. Palmer,
on her baby’s account. Mrs. Jennings, who had been inclined from the
first to think Marianne’s complaint more serious than Elinor, now looked
very grave on Mr. Harris’s report, and confirming Charlotte’s fears and
caution, urged the necessity of her immediate removal with her infant;
and Mr. Palmer, though treating their apprehensions as idle, found the
anxiety and importunity of his wife too great to be withstood. Her de-
parture, therefore, was fixed on; and within an hour after Mr. Harris’s
arrival, she set off, with her little boy and his nurse, for the house of a
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near relation of Mr. Palmer’s, who lived a few miles on the other side
of Bath; whither her husband promised, at her earnest entreaty, to join
her in a day or two; and whither she was almost equally urgent with
her mother to accompany her. Mrs. Jennings, however, with a kindness
of heart which made Elinor really love her, declared her resolution of
not stirring from Cleveland as long as Marianne remained ill, and of en-
deavouring, by her own attentive care, to supply to her the place of the
mother she had taken her from; and Elinor found her on every occasion
a most willing and active helpmate, desirous to share in all her fatigues,
and often by her better experience in nursing, of material use.
Poor Marianne, languid and low from the nature of her malady, and
feeling herself universally ill, could no longer hope that tomorrow would
find her recovered; and the idea of what tomorrow would have produced,
but for this unlucky illness, made every ailment severe; for on that day
they were to have begun their journey home; and, attended the whole
way by a servant of Mrs. Jennings, were to have taken their mother by
surprise on the following forenoon. The little she said was all in lamenta-
tion of this inevitable delay; though Elinor tried to raise her spirits, and
make her believe, as she then really believed herself, that it would be a
very short one.
The next day produced little or no alteration in the state of the pa-
tient; she certainly was not better, and, except that there was no amend-
ment, did not appear worse. Their party was now farther reduced; for
Mr. Palmer, though very unwilling to go as well from real humanity
and good-nature, as from a dislike of appearing to be frightened away
by his wife, was persuaded at last by Colonel Brandon to perform his
promise of following her; and while he was preparing to go, Colonel
Brandon himself, with a much greater exertion, began to talk of going
likewise.—Here, however, the kindness of Mrs. Jennings interposed most
acceptably; for to send the Colonel away while his love was in so much
uneasiness on her sister’s account, would be to deprive them both, she
thought, of every comfort; and therefore telling him at once that his stay
at Cleveland was necessary to herself, that she should want him to play
at piquet of an evening, while Miss Dashwood was above with her sister,
&c. she urged him so strongly to remain, that he, who was gratifying
the first wish of his own heart by a compliance, could not long even
affect to demur; especially as Mrs. Jennings’s entreaty was warmly sec-
onded by Mr. Palmer, who seemed to feel a relief to himself, in leaving
behind him a person so well able to assist or advise Miss Dashwood in
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any emergence.
Marianne was, of course, kept in ignorance of all these arrangements.
She knew not that she had been the means of sending the owners of
Cleveland away, in about seven days from the time of their arrival. It
gave her no surprise that she saw nothing of Mrs. Palmer; and as it gave
her likewise no concern, she never mentioned her name.
Two days passed away from the time of Mr. Palmer’s departure, and
her situation continued, with little variation, the same. Mr. Harris, who
attended her every day, still talked boldly of a speedy recovery, and Miss
Dashwood was equally sanguine; but the expectation of the others was
by no means so cheerful. Mrs. Jennings had determined very early in
the seizure that Marianne would never get over it, and Colonel Brandon,
who was chiefly of use in listening to Mrs. Jennings’s forebodings, was
not in a state of mind to resist their influence. He tried to reason him-
self out of fears, which the different judgment of the apothecary seemed
to render absurd; but the many hours of each day in which he was left
entirely alone, were but too favourable for the admission of every melan-
choly idea, and he could not expel from his mind the persuasion that he
should see Marianne no more.
On the morning of the third day however, the gloomy anticipations
of both were almost done away; for when Mr. Harris arrived, he de-
clared his patient materially better. Her pulse was much stronger, and
every symptom more favourable than on the preceding visit. Elinor, con-
firmed in every pleasant hope, was all cheerfulness; rejoicing that in her
letters to her mother, she had pursued her own judgment rather than her
friend’s, in making very light of the indisposition which delayed them at
Cleveland; and almost fixing on the time when Marianne would be able
to travel.
But the day did not close so auspiciously as it began.—Towards the
evening Marianne became ill again, growing more heavy, restless, and
uncomfortable than before. Her sister, however, still sanguine, was will-
ing to attribute the change to nothing more than the fatigue of having sat
up to have her bed made; and carefully administering the cordials pre-
scribed, saw her, with satisfaction, sink at last into a slumber, from which
she expected the most beneficial effects. Her sleep, though not so quiet
as Elinor wished to see it, lasted a considerable time; and anxious to ob-
serve the result of it herself, she resolved to sit with her during the whole
of it. Mrs. Jennings, knowing nothing of any change in the patient, went
unusually early to bed; her maid, who was one of the principal nurses,
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comfort of hope. Her heart was really grieved. The rapid decay, the
early death of a girl so young, so lovely as Marianne, must have struck
a less interested person with concern. On Mrs. Jennings’s compassion
she had other claims. She had been for three months her companion,
was still under her care, and she was known to have been greatly injured,
and long unhappy. The distress of her sister too, particularly a favourite,
was before her;—and as for their mother, when Mrs. Jennings considered
that Marianne might probably be to her what Charlotte was to herself,
her sympathy in her sufferings was very sincere.
Mr. Harris was punctual in his second visit;—but he came to be disap-
pointed in his hopes of what the last would produce. His medicines had
failed;—the fever was unabated; and Marianne only more quiet—not
more herself—remained in a heavy stupor. Elinor, catching all, and more
than all, his fears in a moment, proposed to call in further advice. But
he judged it unnecessary: he had still something more to try, some more
fresh application, of whose success he was as confident as the last, and
his visit concluded with encouraging assurances which reached the ear,
but could not enter the heart of Miss Dashwood. She was calm, except
when she thought of her mother; but she was almost hopeless; and in
this state she continued till noon, scarcely stirring from her sister’s bed,
her thoughts wandering from one image of grief, one suffering friend
to another, and her spirits oppressed to the utmost by the conversation
of Mrs. Jennings, who scrupled not to attribute the severity and danger
of this attack to the many weeks of previous indisposition which Mari-
anne’s disappointment had brought on. Elinor felt all the reasonableness
of the idea, and it gave fresh misery to her reflections.
About noon, however, she began—but with a caution—a dread of
disappointment which for some time kept her silent, even to her friend—
to fancy, to hope she could perceive a slight amendment in her sister’s
pulse;—she waited, watched, and examined it again and again;—and at
last, with an agitation more difficult to bury under exterior calmness,
than all her foregoing distress, ventured to communicate her hopes. Mrs.
Jennings, though forced, on examination, to acknowledge a temporary
revival, tried to keep her young friend from indulging a thought of its
continuance;—and Elinor, conning over every injunction of distrust, told
herself likewise not to hope. But it was too late. Hope had already
entered; and feeling all its anxious flutter, she bent over her sister to
watch—she hardly knew for what. Half an hour passed away, and the
favourable symptom yet blessed her. Others even arose to confirm it. Her
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breath, her skin, her lips, all flattered Elinor with signs of amendment;
and Marianne fixed her eyes on her with a rational, though languid, gaze.
Anxiety and hope now oppressed her in equal degrees, and left her no
moment of tranquillity till the arrival of Mr. Harris at four o’clock;—
when his assurances, his felicitations on a recovery in her sister even
surpassing his expectation, gave her confidence, comfort, and tears of
joy.
Marianne was in every respect materially better, and he declared her
entirely out of danger. Mrs. Jennings, perhaps satisfied with the partial
justification of her forebodings which had been found in their late alarm,
allowed herself to trust in his judgment, and admitted, with unfeigned
joy, and soon with unequivocal cheerfulness, the probability of an entire
recovery.
Elinor could not be cheerful. Her joy was of a different kind, and
led to any thing rather than to gaiety. Marianne restored to life, health,
friends, and to her doting mother, was an idea to fill her heart with
sensations of exquisite comfort, and expand it in fervent gratitude;—but
it lead to no outward demonstrations of joy, no words, no smiles. All
within Elinor’s breast was satisfaction, silent and strong.
She continued by the side of her sister, with little intermission the
whole afternoon, calming every fear, satisfying every inquiry of her en-
feebled spirits, supplying every succour, and watching almost every look
and every breath. The possibility of a relapse would of course, in some
moments, occur to remind her of what anxiety was—but when she saw,
on her frequent and minute examination, that every symptom of recov-
ery continued, and saw Marianne at six o’clock sink into a quiet, steady,
and to all appearance comfortable, sleep, she silenced every doubt.
The time was now drawing on, when Colonel Brandon might be ex-
pected back. At ten o’clock, she trusted, or at least not much later her
mother would be relieved from the dreadful suspense in which she must
now be travelling towards them. The Colonel, too!—perhaps scarcely
less an object of pity!—Oh!—how slow was the progress of time which
yet kept them in ignorance!
At seven o’clock, leaving Marianne still sweetly asleep, she joined
Mrs. Jennings in the drawing-room to tea. Of breakfast she had been
kept by her fears, and of dinner by their sudden reverse, from eating
much;—and the present refreshment, therefore, with such feelings of
content as she brought to it, was particularly welcome. Mrs. Jennings
would have persuaded her, at its conclusion, to take some rest before her
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mother’s arrival, and allow her to take her place by Marianne; but Elinor
had no sense of fatigue, no capability of sleep at that moment about her,
and she was not to be kept away from her sister an unnecessary instant.
Mrs. Jennings therefore attending her up stairs into the sick chamber, to
satisfy herself that all continued right, left her there again to her charge
and her thoughts, and retired to her own room to write letters and sleep.
The night was cold and stormy. The wind roared round the house,
and the rain beat against the windows; but Elinor, all happiness within,
regarded it not. Marianne slept through every blast; and the travellers—
they had a rich reward in store, for every present inconvenience.
The clock struck eight. Had it been ten, Elinor would have been con-
vinced that at that moment she heard a carriage driving up to the house;
and so strong was the persuasion that she did, in spite of the almost im-
possibility of their being already come, that she moved into the adjoining
dressing-closet and opened a window shutter, to be satisfied of the truth.
She instantly saw that her ears had not deceived her. The flaring lamps of
a carriage were immediately in view. By their uncertain light she thought
she could discern it to be drawn by four horses; and this, while it told
the excess of her poor mother’s alarm, gave some explanation to such
unexpected rapidity.
Never in her life had Elinor found it so difficult to be calm, as at
that moment. The knowledge of what her mother must be feeling as
the carriage stopt at the door—of her doubt—her dread—perhaps her
despair!—and of what she had to tell!—with such knowledge it was im-
possible to be calm. All that remained to be done was to be speedy; and,
therefore staying only till she could leave Mrs. Jennings’s maid with her
sister, she hurried down stairs.
The bustle in the vestibule, as she passed along an inner lobby, as-
sured her that they were already in the house. She rushed to the drawing-
room,—she entered it,—and saw only Willoughby.
Chapter 44
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society would have deprived of all its horrors, I have, by raising myself
to affluence, lost every thing that could make it a blessing.”
“You did then,” said Elinor, a little softened, “believe yourself at one
time attached to her?”
“To have resisted such attractions, to have withstood such
tenderness!—Is there a man on earth who could have done it?—Yes, I
found myself, by insensible degrees, sincerely fond of her; and the happi-
est hours of my life were what I spent with her when I felt my intentions
were strictly honourable, and my feelings blameless. Even then, how-
ever, when fully determined on paying my addresses to her, I allowed
myself most improperly to put off, from day to day, the moment of
doing it, from an unwillingness to enter into an engagement while my
circumstances were so greatly embarrassed. I will not reason here—nor
will I stop for you to expatiate on the absurdity, and the worse than ab-
surdity, of scrupling to engage my faith where my honour was already
bound. The event has proved, that I was a cunning fool, providing with
great circumspection for a possible opportunity of making myself con-
temptible and wretched for ever. At last, however, my resolution was
taken, and I had determined, as soon as I could engage her alone, to
justify the attentions I had so invariably paid her, and openly assure her
of an affection which I had already taken such pains to display. But
in the interim—in the interim of the very few hours that were to pass,
before I could have an opportunity of speaking with her in private—a
circumstance occurred—an unlucky circumstance, to ruin all my reso-
lution, and with it all my comfort. A discovery took place,”—here he
hesitated and looked down.—“Mrs. Smith had somehow or other been
informed, I imagine by some distant relation, whose interest it was to de-
prive me of her favour, of an affair, a connection—but I need not explain
myself farther,” he added, looking at her with an heightened colour and
an enquiring eye—“your particular intimacy—you have probably heard
the whole story long ago.”
“I have,” returned Elinor, colouring likewise, and hardening her
heart anew against any compassion for him, “I have heard it all. And
how you will explain away any part of your guilt in that dreadful busi-
ness, I confess is beyond my comprehension.”
“Remember,” cried Willoughby, “from whom you received the ac-
count. Could it be an impartial one? I acknowledge that her situation
and her character ought to have been respected by me. I do not mean to
justify myself, but at the same time cannot leave you to suppose that I
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have nothing to urge—that because she was injured she was irreproach-
able, and because I was a libertine, she must be a saint. If the violence of
her passions, the weakness of her understanding—I do not mean, how-
ever, to defend myself. Her affection for me deserved better treatment,
and I often, with great self-reproach, recall the tenderness which, for a
very short time, had the power of creating any return. I wish—I heartily
wish it had never been. But I have injured more than herself; and I have
injured one, whose affection for me—(may I say it?) was scarcely less
warm than hers; and whose mind—Oh! how infinitely superior!”—
“Your indifference, however, towards that unfortunate girl—I must
say it, unpleasant to me as the discussion of such a subject may well
be—your indifference is no apology for your cruel neglect of her. Do
not think yourself excused by any weakness, any natural defect of un-
derstanding on her side, in the wanton cruelty so evident on yours. You
must have known, that while you were enjoying yourself in Devonshire
pursuing fresh schemes, always gay, always happy, she was reduced to
the extremest indigence.”
“But, upon my soul, I did not know it,” he warmly replied; “I did
not recollect that I had omitted to give her my direction; and common
sense might have told her how to find it out.”
“Well, sir, and what said Mrs. Smith?”
“She taxed me with the offence at once, and my confusion may be
guessed. The purity of her life, the formality of her notions, her igno-
rance of the world—every thing was against me. The matter itself I could
not deny, and vain was every endeavour to soften it. She was previously
disposed, I believe, to doubt the morality of my conduct in general, and
was moreover discontented with the very little attention, the very little
portion of my time that I had bestowed on her, in my present visit. In
short, it ended in a total breach. By one measure I might have saved
myself. In the height of her morality, good woman! she offered to for-
give the past, if I would marry Eliza. That could not be—and I was
formally dismissed from her favour and her house. The night following
this affair—I was to go the next morning—was spent by me in deliberat-
ing on what my future conduct should be. The struggle was great—but
it ended too soon. My affection for Marianne, my thorough convic-
tion of her attachment to me—it was all insufficient to outweigh that
dread of poverty, or get the better of those false ideas of the necessity of
riches, which I was naturally inclined to feel, and expensive society had
increased. I had reason to believe myself secure of my present wife, if I
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chose to address her, and I persuaded myself to think that nothing else
in common prudence remained for me to do. A heavy scene however
awaited me, before I could leave Devonshire;—I was engaged to dine
with you on that very day; some apology was therefore necessary for my
breaking this engagement. But whether I should write this apology, or
deliver it in person, was a point of long debate. To see Marianne, I felt,
would be dreadful, and I even doubted whether I could see her again,
and keep to my resolution. In that point, however, I undervalued my
own magnanimity, as the event declared; for I went, I saw her, and saw
her miserable, and left her miserable—and left her hoping never to see
her again.”
“Why did you call, Mr. Willoughby?” said Elinor, reproachfully;
“a note would have answered every purpose.—Why was it necessary to
call?”
“It was necessary to my own pride. I could not bear to leave the
country in a manner that might lead you, or the rest of the neighbour-
hood, to suspect any part of what had really passed between Mrs. Smith
and myself—and I resolved therefore on calling at the cottage, in my way
to Honiton. The sight of your dear sister, however, was really dreadful;
and, to heighten the matter, I found her alone. You were all gone I do not
know where. I had left her only the evening before, so fully, so firmly
resolved within my self on doing right! A few hours were to have en-
gaged her to me for ever; and I remember how happy, how gay were my
spirits, as I walked from the cottage to Allenham, satisfied with myself,
delighted with every body! But in this, our last interview of friendship,
I approached her with a sense of guilt that almost took from me the
power of dissembling. Her sorrow, her disappointment, her deep regret,
when I told her that I was obliged to leave Devonshire so immediately—I
never shall forget it—united too with such reliance, such confidence in
me!—Oh, God!—what a hard-hearted rascal I was!”
They were both silent for a few moments. Elinor first spoke.
“Did you tell her that you should soon return?”
“I do not know what I told her,” he replied, impatiently; “less than
was due to the past, beyond a doubt, and in all likelihood much more
than was justified by the future. I cannot think of it.—It won’t do.—
Then came your dear mother to torture me farther, with all her kindness
and confidence. Thank Heaven! it did torture me. I was miserable. Miss
Dashwood, you cannot have an idea of the comfort it gives me to look
back on my own misery. I owe such a grudge to myself for the stupid,
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rascally folly of my own heart, that all my past sufferings under it are
only triumph and exultation to me now. Well, I went, left all that I loved,
and went to those to whom, at best, I was only indifferent. My journey
to town—travelling with my own horses, and therefore so tediously—no
creature to speak to—my own reflections so cheerful—when I looked
forward every thing so inviting!—when I looked back at Barton, the
picture so soothing!—oh, it was a blessed journey!”
He stopped.
“Well, sir,” said Elinor, who, though pitying him, grew impatient for
his departure, “and this is all?”
“Ah!—no,—have you forgot what passed in town?—That infamous
letter—Did she shew it you?”
“Yes, I saw every note that passed.”
“When the first of hers reached me (as it immediately did, for I was
in town the whole time,) what I felt is—in the common phrase, not to
be expressed; in a more simple one—perhaps too simple to raise any
emotion—my feelings were very, very painful.—Every line, every word
was—in the hackneyed metaphor which their dear writer, were she here,
would forbid—a dagger to my heart. To know that Marianne was in
town was—in the same language—a thunderbolt.—Thunderbolts and
daggers!—what a reproof would she have given me!—her taste, her
opinions—I believe they are better known to me than my own,—and
I am sure they are dearer.”
Elinor’s heart, which had undergone many changes in the course of
this extraordinary conversation, was now softened again;—yet she felt it
her duty to check such ideas in her companion as the last.
“This is not right, Mr. Willoughby.—Remember that you are married.
Relate only what in your conscience you think necessary for me to hear.”
“Marianne’s note, by assuring me that I was still as dear to her as
in former days, that in spite of the many, many weeks we had been sep-
arated, she was as constant in her own feelings, and as full of faith in
the constancy of mine as ever, awakened all my remorse. I say awak-
ened, because time and London, business and dissipation, had in some
measure quieted it, and I had been growing a fine hardened villain, fan-
cying myself indifferent to her, and chusing to fancy that she too must
have become indifferent to me; talking to myself of our past attachment
as a mere idle, trifling business, shrugging up my shoulders in proof of
its being so, and silencing every reproach, overcoming every scruple, by
secretly saying now and then, ‘I shall be heartily glad to hear she is well
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married.’—But this note made me know myself better. I felt that she
was infinitely dearer to me than any other woman in the world, and
that I was using her infamously. But every thing was then just settled
between Miss Grey and me. To retreat was impossible. All that I had
to do, was to avoid you both. I sent no answer to Marianne, intending
by that to preserve myself from her farther notice; and for some time I
was even determined not to call in Berkeley Street;—but at last, judging
it wiser to affect the air of a cool, common acquaintance than anything
else, I watched you all safely out of the house one morning, and left my
name.”
“Watched us out of the house!”
“Even so. You would be surprised to hear how often I watched you,
how often I was on the point of falling in with you. I have entered
many a shop to avoid your sight, as the carriage drove by. Lodging as
I did in Bond Street, there was hardly a day in which I did not catch
a glimpse of one or other of you; and nothing but the most constant
watchfulness on my side, a most invariably prevailing desire to keep out
of your sight, could have separated us so long. I avoided the Middletons
as much as possible, as well as everybody else who was likely to prove
an acquaintance in common. Not aware of their being in town, however,
I blundered on Sir John, I believe, the first day of his coming, and the
day after I had called at Mrs. Jennings’s. He asked me to a party, a dance
at his house in the evening.—Had he not told me as an inducement that
you and your sister were to be there, I should have felt it too certain
a thing, to trust myself near him. The next morning brought another
short note from Marianne—still affectionate, open, artless, confiding—
everything that could make my conduct most hateful. I could not answer
it. I tried—but could not frame a sentence. But I thought of her, I believe,
every moment of the day. If you can pity me, Miss Dashwood, pity my
situation as it was then. With my head and heart full of your sister, I
was forced to play the happy lover to another woman!—Those three or
four weeks were worse than all. Well, at last, as I need not tell you, you
were forced on me; and what a sweet figure I cut!—what an evening of
agony it was!—Marianne, beautiful as an angel on one side, calling me
Willoughby in such a tone!—Oh, God!—holding out her hand to me,
asking me for an explanation, with those bewitching eyes fixed in such
speaking solicitude on my face!—and Sophia, jealous as the devil on the
other hand, looking all that was—Well, it does not signify; it is over
now.—Such an evening!—I ran away from you all as soon as I could;
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but not before I had seen Marianne’s sweet face as white as death.—
That was the last, last look I ever had of her;—the last manner in which
she appeared to me. It was a horrid sight!—yet when I thought of her
to-day as really dying, it was a kind of comfort to me to imagine that I
knew exactly how she would appear to those, who saw her last in this
world. She was before me, constantly before me, as I travelled, in the
same look and hue.”
A short pause of mutual thoughtfulness succeeded. Willoughby first
rousing himself, broke it thus:
“Well, let me make haste and be gone. Your sister is certainly better,
certainly out of danger?”
“We are assured of it.”
“Your poor mother, too!—doting on Marianne.”
“But the letter, Mr. Willoughby, your own letter; have you any thing
to say about that?”
“Yes, yes, that in particular. Your sister wrote to me again, you know,
the very next morning. You saw what she said. I was breakfasting at the
Ellisons,—and her letter, with some others, was brought to me there
from my lodgings. It happened to catch Sophia’s eye before it caught
mine—and its size, the elegance of the paper, the hand-writing altogether,
immediately gave her a suspicion. Some vague report had reached her be-
fore of my attachment to some young lady in Devonshire, and what had
passed within her observation the preceding evening had marked who
the young lady was, and made her more jealous than ever. Affecting that
air of playfulness, therefore, which is delightful in a woman one loves,
she opened the letter directly, and read its contents. She was well paid
for her impudence. She read what made her wretched. Her wretchedness
I could have borne, but her passion—her malice—At all events it must
be appeased. And, in short—what do you think of my wife’s style of
letter-writing?—delicate—tender—truly feminine—was it not?”
“Your wife!—The letter was in your own hand-writing.”
“Yes, but I had only the credit of servilely copying such sentences
as I was ashamed to put my name to. The original was all her own—
her own happy thoughts and gentle diction. But what could I do!—we
were engaged, every thing in preparation, the day almost fixed—But I am
talking like a fool. Preparation!—day!—In honest words, her money was
necessary to me, and in a situation like mine, any thing was to be done
to prevent a rupture. And after all, what did it signify to my character in
the opinion of Marianne and her friends, in what language my answer
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was couched?—It must have been only to one end. My business was to
declare myself a scoundrel, and whether I did it with a bow or a bluster
was of little importance.—‘I am ruined for ever in their opinion—’ said I
to myself—’I am shut out for ever from their society, they already think
me an unprincipled fellow, this letter will only make them think me a
blackguard one.’ Such were my reasonings, as, in a sort of desperate
carelessness, I copied my wife’s words, and parted with the last relics of
Marianne. Her three notes—unluckily they were all in my pocketbook,
or I should have denied their existence, and hoarded them for ever—
I was forced to put them up, and could not even kiss them. And the
lock of hair—that too I had always carried about me in the same pocket-
book, which was now searched by Madam with the most ingratiating
virulence,—the dear lock—all, every memento was torn from me.”
“You are very wrong, Mr. Willoughby, very blamable,” said Elinor,
while her voice, in spite of herself, betrayed her compassionate emotion;
“you ought not to speak in this way, either of Mrs. Willoughby or my
sister. You had made your own choice. It was not forced on you. Your
wife has a claim to your politeness, to your respect, at least. She must be
attached to you, or she would not have married you. To treat her with
unkindness, to speak of her slightingly is no atonement to Marianne—
nor can I suppose it a relief to your own conscience.”
“Do not talk to me of my wife,” said he with a heavy sigh.—“She
does not deserve your compassion.—She knew I had no regard for her
when we married.—Well, married we were, and came down to Combe
Magna to be happy, and afterwards returned to town to be gay.—And
now do you pity me, Miss Dashwood?—or have I said all this to no
purpose?—Am I—be it only one degree—am I less guilty in your opin-
ion than I was before?—My intentions were not always wrong. Have I
explained away any part of my guilt?”
“Yes, you have certainly removed something—a little.—You have
proved yourself, on the whole, less faulty than I had believed you. You
have proved your heart less wicked, much less wicked. But I hardly
know—the misery that you have inflicted—I hardly know what could
have made it worse.”
“Will you repeat to your sister when she is recovered, what I have
been telling you?—Let me be a little lightened too in her opinion as well
as in yours. You tell me that she has forgiven me already. Let me be able
to fancy that a better knowledge of my heart, and of my present feelings,
will draw from her a more spontaneous, more natural, more gentle, less
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Chapter 45
E LINOR , for some time after he left her, for some time even after the
sound of his carriage had died away, remained too much oppressed by a
crowd of ideas, widely differing in themselves, but of which sadness was
the general result, to think even of her sister.
Willoughby, he, whom only half an hour ago she had abhorred as
the most worthless of men, Willoughby, in spite of all his faults, excited
a degree of commiseration for the sufferings produced by them, which
made her think of him as now separated for ever from her family, with
a tenderness, a regret, rather in proportion, as she soon acknowledged
within herself—to his wishes than to his merits. She felt that his influ-
ence over her mind was heightened by circumstances which ought not
in reason to have weight; by that person of uncommon attraction, that
open, affectionate, and lively manner which it was no merit to possess;
and by that still ardent love for Marianne, which it was not even inno-
cent to indulge. But she felt that it was so, long, long before she could
feel his influence less.
When at last she returned to the unconscious Marianne, she found
her just awaking, refreshed by so long and sweet a sleep to the extent
of her hopes. Elinor’s heart was full. The past, the present, the future,
Willoughby’s visit, Marianne’s safety, and her mother’s expected arrival,
threw her altogether into an agitation of spirits which kept off every
indication of fatigue, and made her only fearful of betraying herself to
her sister. Short was the time, however, in which that fear could affect
her, for within half an hour after Willoughby’s leaving the house, she
was again called down stairs by the sound of another carriage.—Eager
to save her mother from every unnecessary moment’s horrible suspense,
she ran immediately into the hall, and reached the outward door just in
time to receive and support her as she entered it.
Mrs. Dashwood, whose terror as they drew near the house had pro-
duced almost the conviction of Marianne’s being no more, had no voice
to inquire after her, no voice even for Elinor; but she, waiting neither for
salutation nor inquiry, instantly gave the joyful relief;—and her mother,
catching it with all her usual warmth, was in a moment as much over-
come by her happiness, as she had been before by her fears. She was
supported into the drawing-room between her daughter and her friend;—
and there, shedding tears of joy, though still unable to speak, embraced
Elinor again and again, turning from her at intervals to press Colonel
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Brandon’s hand, with a look which spoke at once her gratitude, and her
conviction of his sharing with herself in the bliss of the moment. He
shared it, however, in a silence even greater than her own.
As soon as Mrs. Dashwood had recovered herself, to see Marianne
was her first desire; and in two minutes she was with her beloved child,
rendered dearer to her than ever by absence, unhappiness, and danger.
Elinor’s delight, as she saw what each felt in the meeting, was only
checked by an apprehension of its robbing Marianne of farther sleep;—
but Mrs. Dashwood could be calm, could be even prudent, when the
life of a child was at stake, and Marianne, satisfied in knowing her
mother was near her, and conscious of being too weak for conversa-
tion, submitted readily to the silence and quiet prescribed by every nurse
around her. Mrs. Dashwood would sit up with her all night; and Eli-
nor, in compliance with her mother’s entreaty, went to bed. But the rest,
which one night entirely sleepless, and many hours of the most wearing
anxiety seemed to make requisite, was kept off by irritation of spirits.
Willoughby, “poor Willoughby,” as she now allowed herself to call him,
was constantly in her thoughts; she would not but have heard his vindi-
cation for the world, and now blamed, now acquitted herself for having
judged him so harshly before. But her promise of relating it to her sister
was invariably painful. She dreaded the performance of it, dreaded what
its effect on Marianne might be; doubted whether after such an expla-
nation she could ever be happy with another; and for a moment wished
Willoughby a widower. Then, remembering Colonel Brandon, reproved
herself, felt that to his sufferings and his constancy far more than to his
rival’s, the reward of her sister was due, and wished any thing rather
than Mrs. Willoughby’s death.
The shock of Colonel Brandon’s errand at Barton had been much
softened to Mrs. Dashwood by her own previous alarm; for so great
was her uneasiness about Marianne, that she had already determined to
set out for Cleveland on that very day, without waiting for any further
intelligence, and had so far settled her journey before his arrival, that the
Careys were then expected every moment to fetch Margaret away, as her
mother was unwilling to take her where there might be infection.
Marianne continued to mend every day, and the brilliant cheerful-
ness of Mrs. Dashwood’s looks and spirits proved her to be, as she
repeatedly declared herself, one of the happiest women in the world.
Elinor could not hear the declaration, nor witness its proofs without
sometimes wondering whether her mother ever recollected Edward. But
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quest, for she was impatient to pour forth her thanks to him for fetching
her mother, Colonel Brandon was invited to visit her.
His emotion on entering the room, in seeing her altered looks, and
in receiving the pale hand which she immediately held out to him, was
such, as, in Elinor’s conjecture, must arise from something more than
his affection for Marianne, or the consciousness of its being known to
others; and she soon discovered in his melancholy eye and varying com-
plexion as he looked at her sister, the probable recurrence of many past
scenes of misery to his mind, brought back by that resemblance between
Marianne and Eliza already acknowledged, and now strengthened by
the hollow eye, the sickly skin, the posture of reclining weakness, and
the warm acknowledgment of peculiar obligation.
Mrs. Dashwood, not less watchful of what passed than her daughter,
but with a mind very differently influenced, and therefore watching to
very different effect, saw nothing in the Colonel’s behaviour but what
arose from the most simple and self-evident sensations, while in the ac-
tions and words of Marianne she persuaded herself to think that some-
thing more than gratitude already dawned.
At the end of another day or two, Marianne growing visibly stronger
every twelve hours, Mrs. Dashwood, urged equally by her own and her
daughter’s wishes, began to talk of removing to Barton. On her mea-
sures depended those of her two friends; Mrs. Jennings could not quit
Cleveland during the Dashwoods’ stay; and Colonel Brandon was soon
brought, by their united request, to consider his own abode there as
equally determinate, if not equally indispensable. At his and Mrs. Jen-
nings’s united request in return, Mrs. Dashwood was prevailed on to
accept the use of his carriage on her journey back, for the better accom-
modation of her sick child; and the Colonel, at the joint invitation of
Mrs. Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings, whose active good-nature made her
friendly and hospitable for other people as well as herself, engaged with
pleasure to redeem it by a visit at the cottage, in the course of a few
weeks.
The day of separation and departure arrived; and Marianne, after
taking so particular and lengthened a leave of Mrs. Jennings, one so
earnestly grateful, so full of respect and kind wishes as seemed due to
her own heart from a secret acknowledgment of past inattention, and
bidding Colonel Brandon farewell with a cordiality of a friend, was care-
fully assisted by him into the carriage, of which he seemed anxious that
she should engross at least half. Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor then fol-
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lowed, and the others were left by themselves, to talk of the travellers,
and feel their own dullness, till Mrs. Jennings was summoned to her
chaise to take comfort in the gossip of her maid for the loss of her two
young companions; and Colonel Brandon immediately afterwards took
his solitary way to Delaford.
The Dashwoods were two days on the road, and Marianne bore her
journey on both, without essential fatigue. Every thing that the most
zealous affection, the most solicitous care could do to render her com-
fortable, was the office of each watchful companion, and each found
their reward in her bodily ease, and her calmness of spirits. To Elinor,
the observation of the latter was particularly grateful. She, who had
seen her week after week so constantly suffering, oppressed by anguish
of heart which she had neither courage to speak of, nor fortitude to
conceal, now saw with a joy, which no other could equally share, an
apparent composure of mind, which, in being the result as she trusted of
serious reflection, must eventually lead her to contentment and cheerful-
ness.
As they approached Barton, indeed, and entered on scenes of which
every field and every tree brought some peculiar, some painful recollec-
tion, she grew silent and thoughtful, and turning away her face from
their notice, sat earnestly gazing through the window. But here, Elinor
could neither wonder nor blame; and when she saw, as she assisted Mar-
ianne from the carriage, that she had been crying, she saw only an emo-
tion too natural in itself to raise any thing less tender than pity, and in
its unobtrusiveness entitled to praise. In the whole of her subsequent
manner, she traced the direction of a mind awakened to reasonable ex-
ertion; for no sooner had they entered their common sitting-room, than
Marianne turned her eyes around it with a look of resolute firmness, as
if determined at once to accustom herself to the sight of every object
with which the remembrance of Willoughby could be connected.—She
said little, but every sentence aimed at cheerfulness, and though a sigh
sometimes escaped her, it never passed away without the atonement of a
smile. After dinner she would try her piano-forte. She went to it; but the
music on which her eye first rested was an opera, procured for her by
Willoughby, containing some of their favourite duets, and bearing on its
outward leaf her own name in his hand-writing.—That would not do.—
She shook her head, put the music aside, and after running over the keys
for a minute, complained of feebleness in her fingers, and closed the in-
strument again; declaring however with firmness as she did so, that she
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reached the door of the cottage, easily conjecturing what her curiosity
must be though no question was suffered to speak it, talked of noth-
ing but Willoughby, and their conversation together; and was carefully
minute in every particular of speech and look, where minuteness could
be safely indulged. As soon as they entered the house, Marianne with a
kiss of gratitude and these two words just articulate through her tears,
“Tell mama,” withdrew from her sister and walked slowly up stairs. Eli-
nor would not attempt to disturb a solitude so reasonable as what she
now sought; and with a mind anxiously pre-arranging its result, and a
resolution of reviving the subject again, should Marianne fail to do it,
she turned into the parlour to fulfill her parting injunction.
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“I wish to assure you both,” said she, “that I see every thing—as you
can desire me to do.”
Mrs. Dashwood would have interrupted her instantly with soothing
tenderness, had not Elinor, who really wished to hear her sister’s unbi-
ased opinion, by an eager sign, engaged her silence. Marianne slowly
continued—
“It is a great relief to me—what Elinor told me this morning—I have
now heard exactly what I wished to hear.”—For some moments her voice
was lost; but recovering herself, she added, and with greater calmness
than before—“I am now perfectly satisfied, I wish for no change. I never
could have been happy with him, after knowing, as sooner or later I
must have known, all this.—I should have had no confidence, no esteem.
Nothing could have done it away to my feelings.”
“I know it—I know it,” cried her mother. “Happy with a man of
libertine practices!—With one who so injured the peace of the dearest of
our friends, and the best of men!—No—my Marianne has not a heart
to be made happy with such a man!—Her conscience, her sensitive con-
science, would have felt all that the conscience of her husband ought to
have felt.”
Marianne sighed, and repeated, “I wish for no change.”
“You consider the matter,” said Elinor, “exactly as a good mind and
a sound understanding must consider it; and I dare say you perceive, as
well as myself, not only in this, but in many other circumstances, reason
enough to be convinced that your marriage must have involved you in
many certain troubles and disappointments, in which you would have
been poorly supported by an affection, on his side, much less certain.
Had you married, you must have been always poor. His expensiveness
is acknowledged even by himself, and his whole conduct declares that
self-denial is a word hardly understood by him. His demands and your
inexperience together, on a small, very small income, must have brought
on distresses which would not be the less grievous to you, from having
been entirely unknown and unthought of before. Your sense of honour
and honesty would have led you, I know, when aware of your situation,
to attempt all the economy that would appear to you possible: and, per-
haps, as long as your frugality retrenched only on your own comfort,
you might have been suffered to practice it, but beyond that—and how
little could the utmost of your single management do to stop the ruin
which had begun before your marriage?—Beyond that, had you endeav-
oured, however reasonably, to abridge his enjoyments, is it not to be
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far recovered the use of her reason and voice as to be just beginning an
inquiry of Thomas, as to the source of his intelligence. Mrs. Dashwood
immediately took all that trouble on herself; and Elinor had the benefit
of the information without the exertion of seeking it.
“Who told you that Mr. Ferrars was married, Thomas?”
“I see Mr. Ferrars myself, ma’am, this morning in Exeter, and his lady
too, Miss Steele as was. They was stopping in a chaise at the door of the
New London Inn, as I went there with a message from Sally at the Park
to her brother, who is one of the post-boys. I happened to look up as I
went by the chaise, and so I see directly it was the youngest Miss Steele;
so I took off my hat, and she knew me and called to me, and inquired
after you, ma’am, and the young ladies, especially Miss Marianne, and
bid me I should give her compliments and Mr. Ferrars’s, their best com-
pliments and service, and how sorry they was they had not time to come
on and see you, but they was in a great hurry to go forwards, for they
was going further down for a little while, but howsever, when they come
back, they’d make sure to come and see you.”
“But did she tell you she was married, Thomas?”
“Yes, ma’am. She smiled, and said how she had changed her name
since she was in these parts. She was always a very affable and free-
spoken young lady, and very civil behaved. So, I made free to wish her
joy.”
“Was Mr. Ferrars in the carriage with her?”
“Yes, ma’am, I just see him leaning back in it, but he did not look
up;—he never was a gentleman much for talking.”
Elinor’s heart could easily account for his not putting himself for-
ward; and Mrs. Dashwood probably found the same explanation.
“Was there no one else in the carriage?”
“No, ma’am, only they two.”
“Do you know where they came from?”
“They come straight from town, as Miss Lucy—Mrs. Ferrars told
me.”
“And are they going farther westward?”
“Yes, ma’am—but not to bide long. They will soon be back again,
and then they’d be sure and call here.”
Mrs. Dashwood now looked at her daughter; but Elinor knew better
than to expect them. She recognised the whole of Lucy in the message,
and was very confident that Edward would never come near them. She
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observed in a low voice, to her mother, that they were probably going
down to Mr. Pratt’s, near Plymouth.
Thomas’s intelligence seemed over. Elinor looked as if she wished to
hear more.
“Did you see them off, before you came away?”
“No, ma’am—the horses were just coming out, but I could not bide
any longer; I was afraid of being late.”
“Did Mrs. Ferrars look well?”
“Yes, ma’am, she said how she was very well; and to my mind she
was always a very handsome young lady—and she seemed vastly con-
tented.”
Mrs. Dashwood could think of no other question, and Thomas
and the tablecloth, now alike needless, were soon afterwards dismissed.
Marianne had already sent to say, that she should eat nothing more.
Mrs. Dashwood’s and Elinor’s appetites were equally lost, and Margaret
might think herself very well off, that with so much uneasiness as both
her sisters had lately experienced, so much reason as they had often had
to be careless of their meals, she had never been obliged to go without
her dinner before.
When the dessert and the wine were arranged, and Mrs. Dashwood
and Elinor were left by themselves, they remained long together in a sim-
ilarity of thoughtfulness and silence. Mrs. Dashwood feared to hazard
any remark, and ventured not to offer consolation. She now found that
she had erred in relying on Elinor’s representation of herself; and justly
concluded that every thing had been expressly softened at the time, to
spare her from an increase of unhappiness, suffering as she then had
suffered for Marianne. She found that she had been misled by the care-
ful, the considerate attention of her daughter, to think the attachment,
which once she had so well understood, much slighter in reality, than
she had been wont to believe, or than it was now proved to be. She
feared that under this persuasion she had been unjust, inattentive, nay,
almost unkind, to her Elinor;—that Marianne’s affliction, because more
acknowledged, more immediately before her, had too much engrossed
her tenderness, and led her away to forget that in Elinor she might have
a daughter suffering almost as much, certainly with less self-provocation,
and greater fortitude.
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to hear from him again. I earnestly pressed his coming to us, and should
not be surprised to see him walk in today or tomorrow, or any day.”
This was gaining something, something to look forward to. Colonel
Brandon must have some information to give.
Scarcely had she so determined it, when the figure of a man on horse-
back drew her eyes to the window. He stopt at their gate. It was a gen-
tleman, it was Colonel Brandon himself. Now she could hear more; and
she trembled in expectation of it. But—it was not Colonel Brandon—
neither his air—nor his height. Were it possible, she must say it must be
Edward. She looked again. He had just dismounted;—she could not be
mistaken,—it was Edward. She moved away and sat down. “He comes
from Mr. Pratt’s purposely to see us. I will be calm; I will be mistress of
myself.”
In a moment she perceived that the others were likewise aware of the
mistake. She saw her mother and Marianne change colour; saw them
look at herself, and whisper a few sentences to each other. She would
have given the world to be able to speak—and to make them understand
that she hoped no coolness, no slight, would appear in their behaviour
to him;—but she had no utterance, and was obliged to leave all to their
own discretion.
Not a syllable passed aloud. They all waited in silence for the appear-
ance of their visitor. His footsteps were heard along the gravel path; in a
moment he was in the passage, and in another he was before them.
His countenance, as he entered the room, was not too happy, even
for Elinor. His complexion was white with agitation, and he looked as
if fearful of his reception, and conscious that he merited no kind one.
Mrs. Dashwood, however, conforming, as she trusted, to the wishes of
that daughter, by whom she then meant in the warmth of her heart to be
guided in every thing, met with a look of forced complacency, gave him
her hand, and wished him joy.
He coloured, and stammered out an unintelligible reply. Elinor’s lips
had moved with her mother’s, and, when the moment of action was over,
she wished that she had shaken hands with him too. But it was then too
late, and with a countenance meaning to be open, she sat down again
and talked of the weather.
Marianne had retreated as much as possible out of sight, to conceal
her distress; and Margaret, understanding some part, but not the whole
of the case, thought it incumbent on her to be dignified, and therefore
took a seat as far from him as she could, and maintained a strict silence.
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When Elinor had ceased to rejoice in the dryness of the season, a very
awful pause took place. It was put an end to by Mrs. Dashwood, who
felt obliged to hope that he had left Mrs. Ferrars very well. In a hurried
manner, he replied in the affirmative.
Another pause.
Elinor resolving to exert herself, though fearing the sound of her own
voice, now said,
“Is Mrs. Ferrars at Longstaple?”
“At Longstaple!” he replied, with an air of surprise.—“No, my
mother is in town.”
“I meant,” said Elinor, taking up some work from the table, “to
inquire for Mrs. Edward Ferrars.”
She dared not look up;—but her mother and Marianne both turned
their eyes on him. He coloured, seemed perplexed, looked doubtingly,
and, after some hesitation, said,—
“Perhaps you mean—my brother—you mean Mrs.—Mrs. Robert Fer-
rars.”
“Mrs. Robert Ferrars!”—was repeated by Marianne and her mother
in an accent of the utmost amazement;—and though Elinor could not
speak, even her eyes were fixed on him with the same impatient wonder.
He rose from his seat, and walked to the window, apparently from not
knowing what to do; took up a pair of scissors that lay there, and while
spoiling both them and their sheath by cutting the latter to pieces as he
spoke, said, in a hurried voice,
“Perhaps you do not know—you may not have heard that my brother
is lately married to—to the youngest—to Miss Lucy Steele.”
His words were echoed with unspeakable astonishment by all but
Elinor, who sat with her head leaning over her work, in a state of such
agitation as made her hardly know where she was.
“Yes,” said he, “they were married last week, and are now at
Dawlish.”
Elinor could sit it no longer. She almost ran out of the room, and
as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she
thought would never cease. Edward, who had till then looked any where,
rather than at her, saw her hurry away, and perhaps saw—or even heard,
her emotion; for immediately afterwards he fell into a reverie, which
no remarks, no inquiries, no affectionate address of Mrs. Dashwood
could penetrate, and at last, without saying a word, quitted the room,
and walked out towards the village—leaving the others in the greatest
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“It was a foolish, idle inclination on my side,” said he, “the conse-
quence of ignorance of the world—and want of employment. Had my
brother given me some active profession when I was removed at eighteen
from the care of Mr. Pratt, I think—nay, I am sure, it would never have
happened; for though I left Longstaple with what I thought, at the time,
a most unconquerable preference for his niece, yet had I then had any
pursuit, any object to engage my time and keep me at a distance from
her for a few months, I should very soon have outgrown the fancied
attachment, especially by mixing more with the world, as in such case I
must have done. But instead of having any thing to do, instead of having
any profession chosen for me, or being allowed to chuse any myself, I
returned home to be completely idle; and for the first twelvemonth after-
wards I had not even the nominal employment, which belonging to the
university would have given me; for I was not entered at Oxford till I
was nineteen. I had therefore nothing in the world to do, but to fancy
myself in love; and as my mother did not make my home in every re-
spect comfortable, as I had no friend, no companion in my brother, and
disliked new acquaintance, it was not unnatural for me to be very often
at Longstaple, where I always felt myself at home, and was always sure
of a welcome; and accordingly I spent the greatest part of my time there
from eighteen to nineteen: Lucy appeared everything that was amiable
and obliging. She was pretty too—at least I thought so then; and I had
seen so little of other women, that I could make no comparisons, and
see no defects. Considering everything, therefore, I hope, foolish as our
engagement was, foolish as it has since in every way been proved, it was
not at the time an unnatural or an inexcusable piece of folly.”
The change which a few hours had wrought in the minds and the
happiness of the Dashwoods, was such—so great—as promised them all,
the satisfaction of a sleepless night. Mrs. Dashwood, too happy to be
comfortable, knew not how to love Edward, nor praise Elinor enough,
how to be enough thankful for his release without wounding his deli-
cacy, nor how at once to give them leisure for unrestrained conversation
together, and yet enjoy, as she wished, the sight and society of both.
Marianne could speak her happiness only by tears. Comparisons
would occur—regrets would arise;—and her joy, though sincere as her
love for her sister, was of a kind to give her neither spirits nor language.
But Elinor—how are her feelings to be described?—From the mo-
ment of learning that Lucy was married to another, that Edward was
free, to the moment of his justifying the hopes which had so instantly
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followed, she was every thing by turns but tranquil. But when the sec-
ond moment had passed, when she found every doubt, every solicitude
removed, compared her situation with what so lately it had been,—saw
him honourably released from his former engagement, saw him instantly
profiting by the release, to address herself and declare an affection as ten-
der, as constant as she had ever supposed it to be,—she was oppressed,
she was overcome by her own felicity;—and happily disposed as is the
human mind to be easily familiarized with any change for the better, it
required several hours to give sedateness to her spirits, or any degree of
tranquillity to her heart.
Edward was now fixed at the cottage at least for a week;—for what-
ever other claims might be made on him, it was impossible that less than
a week should be given up to the enjoyment of Elinor’s company, or
suffice to say half that was to be said of the past, the present, and the
future;—for though a very few hours spent in the hard labor of incessant
talking will despatch more subjects than can really be in common be-
tween any two rational creatures, yet with lovers it is different. Between
them no subject is finished, no communication is even made, till it has
been made at least twenty times over.
Lucy’s marriage, the unceasing and reasonable wonder among them
all, formed of course one of the earliest discussions of the lovers;—and
Elinor’s particular knowledge of each party made it appear to her in
every view, as one of the most extraordinary and unaccountable circum-
stances she had ever heard. How they could be thrown together, and
by what attraction Robert could be drawn on to marry a girl, of whose
beauty she had herself heard him speak without any admiration,—a girl
too already engaged to his brother, and on whose account that brother
had been thrown off by his family—it was beyond her comprehension to
make out. To her own heart it was a delightful affair, to her imagination
it was even a ridiculous one, but to her reason, her judgment, it was
completely a puzzle.
Edward could only attempt an explanation by supposing, that, per-
haps, at first accidentally meeting, the vanity of the one had been so
worked on by the flattery of the other, as to lead by degrees to all the
rest. Elinor remembered what Robert had told her in Harley Street, of
his opinion of what his own mediation in his brother’s affairs might have
done, if applied to in time. She repeated it to Edward.
“That was exactly like Robert,”—was his immediate observation.—
“And that,” he presently added, “might perhaps be in his head when the
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acquaintance between them first began. And Lucy perhaps at first might
think only of procuring his good offices in my favour. Other designs
might afterward arise.”
How long it had been carrying on between them, however, he was
equally at a loss with herself to make out; for at Oxford, where he
had remained for choice ever since his quitting London, he had had no
means of hearing of her but from herself, and her letters to the very
last were neither less frequent, nor less affectionate than usual. Not the
smallest suspicion, therefore, had ever occurred to prepare him for what
followed;—and when at last it burst on him in a letter from Lucy herself,
he had been for some time, he believed, half stupified between the won-
der, the horror, and the joy of such a deliverance. He put the letter into
Elinor’s hands.
“Dear sir,
“Being very sure I have long lost your affections, I have thought my-
self at liberty to bestow my own on another, and have no doubt of being
as happy with him as I once used to think I might be with you; but I
scorn to accept a hand while the heart was another’s. Sincerely wish you
happy in your choice, and it shall not be my fault if we are not always
good friends, as our near relationship now makes proper. I can safely
say I owe you no ill-will, and am sure you will be too generous to do us
any ill offices. Your brother has gained my affections entirely, and as we
could not live without one another, we are just returned from the altar,
and are now on our way to Dawlish for a few weeks, which place your
dear brother has great curiosity to see, but thought I would first trouble
you with these few lines, and shall always remain,
“Your sincere well-wisher, friend, and sister,
“Lucy Ferrars.
“I have burnt all your letters, and will return your picture the first
opportunity. Please to destroy my scrawls—but the ring with my hair
you are very welcome to keep.”
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over the pages of her writing!—and I believe I may say that since the first
half year of our foolish—business—this is the only letter I ever received
from her, of which the substance made me any amends for the defect of
the style.”
“However it may have come about,” said Elinor, after a pause,—
“they are certainly married. And your mother has brought on herself a
most appropriate punishment. The independence she settled on Robert,
through resentment against you, has put it in his power to make his own
choice; and she has actually been bribing one son with a thousand a-year,
to do the very deed which she disinherited the other for intending to do.
She will hardly be less hurt, I suppose, by Robert’s marrying Lucy, than
she would have been by your marrying her.”
“She will be more hurt by it, for Robert always was her favourite.—
She will be more hurt by it, and on the same principle will forgive him
much sooner.”
In what state the affair stood at present between them, Edward knew
not, for no communication with any of his family had yet been attempted
by him. He had quitted Oxford within four and twenty hours after
Lucy’s letter arrived, and with only one object before him, the nearest
road to Barton, had had no leisure to form any scheme of conduct, with
which that road did not hold the most intimate connection. He could
do nothing till he were assured of his fate with Miss Dashwood; and
by his rapidity in seeking that fate, it is to be supposed, in spite of the
jealousy with which he had once thought of Colonel Brandon, in spite
of the modesty with which he rated his own deserts, and the politeness
with which he talked of his doubts, he did not, upon the whole, expect a
very cruel reception. It was his business, however, to say that he did, and
he said it very prettily. What he might say on the subject a twelvemonth
after, must be referred to the imagination of husbands and wives.
That Lucy had certainly meant to deceive, to go off with a flourish of
malice against him in her message by Thomas, was perfectly clear to Eli-
nor; and Edward himself, now thoroughly enlightened on her character,
had no scruple in believing her capable of the utmost meanness of wan-
ton ill-nature. Though his eyes had been long opened, even before his
acquaintance with Elinor began, to her ignorance and a want of liberal-
ity in some of her opinions—they had been equally imputed, by him, to
her want of education; and till her last letter reached him, he had always
believed her to be a well-disposed, good-hearted girl, and thoroughly at-
tached to himself. Nothing but such a persuasion could have prevented
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the morning, early enough to interrupt the lovers’ first tête-à-tête before
breakfast.
A three weeks’ residence at Delaford, where, in his evening hours at
least, he had little to do but to calculate the disproportion between thirty-
six and seventeen, brought him to Barton in a temper of mind which
needed all the improvement in Marianne’s looks, all the kindness of her
welcome, and all the encouragement of her mother’s language, to make
it cheerful. Among such friends, however, and such flattery, he did revive.
No rumour of Lucy’s marriage had yet reached him:—he knew nothing
of what had passed; and the first hours of his visit were consequently
spent in hearing and in wondering. Every thing was explained to him
by Mrs. Dashwood, and he found fresh reason to rejoice in what he had
done for Mr. Ferrars, since eventually it promoted the interest of Elinor.
It would be needless to say, that the gentlemen advanced in the good
opinion of each other, as they advanced in each other’s acquaintance,
for it could not be otherwise. Their resemblance in good principles and
good sense, in disposition and manner of thinking, would probably have
been sufficient to unite them in friendship, without any other attraction;
but their being in love with two sisters, and two sisters fond of each
other, made that mutual regard inevitable and immediate, which might
otherwise have waited the effect of time and judgment.
The letters from town, which a few days before would have made
every nerve in Elinor’s body thrill with transport, now arrived to be read
with less emotion that mirth. Mrs. Jennings wrote to tell the wonderful
tale, to vent her honest indignation against the jilting girl, and pour forth
her compassion towards poor Mr. Edward, who, she was sure, had quite
doted upon the worthless hussy, and was now, by all accounts, almost
broken-hearted, at Oxford.—“I do think,” she continued, “nothing was
ever carried on so sly; for it was but two days before Lucy called and sat
a couple of hours with me. Not a soul suspected anything of the matter,
not even Nancy, who, poor soul! came crying to me the day after, in a
great fright for fear of Mrs. Ferrars, as well as not knowing how to get to
Plymouth; for Lucy it seems borrowed all her money before she went off
to be married, on purpose we suppose to make a show with, and poor
Nancy had not seven shillings in the world;—so I was very glad to give
her five guineas to take her down to Exeter, where she thinks of staying
three or four weeks with Mrs. Burgess, in hopes, as I tell her, to fall in
with the Doctor again. And I must say that Lucy’s crossness not to take
them along with them in the chaise is worse than all. Poor Mr. Edward!
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I cannot get him out of my head, but you must send for him to Barton,
and Miss Marianne must try to comfort him.”
Mr. Dashwood’s strains were more solemn. Mrs. Ferrars was
the most unfortunate of women—poor Fanny had suffered agonies of
sensibility—and he considered the existence of each, under such a blow,
with grateful wonder. Robert’s offence was unpardonable, but Lucy’s
was infinitely worse. Neither of them were ever again to be mentioned
to Mrs. Ferrars; and even, if she might hereafter be induced to forgive
her son, his wife should never be acknowledged as her daughter, nor be
permitted to appear in her presence. The secrecy with which everything
had been carried on between them, was rationally treated as enormously
heightening the crime, because, had any suspicion of it occurred to the
others, proper measures would have been taken to prevent the marriage;
and he called on Elinor to join with him in regretting that Lucy’s engage-
ment with Edward had not rather been fulfilled, than that she should
thus be the means of spreading misery farther in the family.—He thus
continued:
“Mrs. Ferrars has never yet mentioned Edward’s name, which does
not surprise us; but, to our great astonishment, not a line has been re-
ceived from him on the occasion. Perhaps, however, he is kept silent by
his fear of offending, and I shall, therefore, give him a hint, by a line
to Oxford, that his sister and I both think a letter of proper submission
from him, addressed perhaps to Fanny, and by her shewn to her mother,
might not be taken amiss; for we all know the tenderness of Mrs. Fer-
rars’s heart, and that she wishes for nothing so much as to be on good
terms with her children.”
This paragraph was of some importance to the prospects and conduct
of Edward. It determined him to attempt a reconciliation, though not
exactly in the manner pointed out by their brother and sister.
“A letter of proper submission!” repeated he; “would they have me
beg my mother’s pardon for Robert’s ingratitude to her, and breach of
honour to me?—I can make no submission—I am grown neither humble
nor penitent by what has passed.—I am grown very happy; but that
would not interest.—I know of no submission that is proper for me to
make.”
“You may certainly ask to be forgiven,” said Elinor, “because you
have offended;—and I should think you might now venture so far as
to profess some concern for having ever formed the engagement which
drew on you your mother’s anger.”
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Chapter 50
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the happiest couples in the world. They had in fact nothing to wish for,
but the marriage of Colonel Brandon and Marianne, and rather better
pasturage for their cows.
They were visited on their first settling by almost all their relations
and friends. Mrs. Ferrars came to inspect the happiness which she was
almost ashamed of having authorised; and even the Dashwoods were at
the expense of a journey from Sussex to do them honour.
“I will not say that I am disappointed, my dear sister,” said John,
as they were walking together one morning before the gates of Delaford
House, “that would be saying too much, for certainly you have been one
of the most fortunate young women in the world, as it is. But, I confess,
it would give me great pleasure to call Colonel Brandon brother. His
property here, his place, his house, every thing is in such respectable and
excellent condition!—and his woods!—I have not seen such timber any
where in Dorsetshire, as there is now standing in Delaford Hanger!—
And though, perhaps, Marianne may not seem exactly the person to
attract him—yet I think it would altogether be advisable for you to have
them now frequently staying with you, for as Colonel Brandon seems a
great deal at home, nobody can tell what may happen—for, when people
are much thrown together, and see little of anybody else—and it will
always be in your power to set her off to advantage, and so forth;—in
short, you may as well give her a chance—You understand me.”—
But though Mrs. Ferrars did come to see them, and always treated
them with the make-believe of decent affection, they were never insulted
by her real favour and preference. That was due to the folly of Robert,
and the cunning of his wife; and it was earned by them before many
months had passed away. The selfish sagacity of the latter, which had
at first drawn Robert into the scrape, was the principal instrument of
his deliverance from it; for her respectful humility, assiduous attentions,
and endless flatteries, as soon as the smallest opening was given for their
exercise, reconciled Mrs. Ferrars to his choice, and re-established him
completely in her favour.
The whole of Lucy’s behaviour in the affair, and the prosperity which
crowned it, therefore, may be held forth as a most encouraging instance
of what an earnest, an unceasing attention to self-interest, however its
progress may be apparently obstructed, will do in securing every advan-
tage of fortune, with no other sacrifice than that of time and conscience.
When Robert first sought her acquaintance, and privately visited her in
Bartlett’s Buildings, it was only with the view imputed to him by his
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What Edward had done to forfeit the right of eldest son, might have
puzzled many people to find out; and what Robert had done to succeed
to it, might have puzzled them still more. It was an arrangement, how-
ever, justified in its effects, if not in its cause; for nothing ever appeared
in Robert’s style of living or of talking to give a suspicion of his regret-
ting the extent of his income, as either leaving his brother too little, or
bringing himself too much;—and if Edward might be judged from the
ready discharge of his duties in every particular, from an increasing at-
tachment to his wife and his home, and from the regular cheerfulness of
his spirits, he might be supposed no less contented with his lot, no less
free from every wish of an exchange.
Elinor’s marriage divided her as little from her family as could well
be contrived, without rendering the cottage at Barton entirely useless,
for her mother and sisters spent much more than half their time with
her. Mrs. Dashwood was acting on motives of policy as well as plea-
sure in the frequency of her visits at Delaford; for her wish of bringing
Marianne and Colonel Brandon together was hardly less earnest, though
rather more liberal than what John had expressed. It was now her dar-
ling object. Precious as was the company of her daughter to her, she de-
sired nothing so much as to give up its constant enjoyment to her valued
friend; and to see Marianne settled at the mansion-house was equally the
wish of Edward and Elinor. They each felt his sorrows, and their own
obligations, and Marianne, by general consent, was to be the reward of
all.
With such a confederacy against her—with a knowledge so intimate
of his goodness—with a conviction of his fond attachment to herself,
which at last, though long after it was observable to everybody else—
burst on her—what could she do?
Marianne Dashwood was born to an extraordinary fate. She was
born to discover the falsehood of her own opinions, and to counteract,
by her conduct, her most favourite maxims. She was born to overcome
an affection formed so late in life as at seventeen, and with no sentiment
superior to strong esteem and lively friendship, voluntarily to give her
hand to another!—and that other, a man who had suffered no less than
herself under the event of a former attachment, whom, two years before,
she had considered too old to be married,—and who still sought the
constitutional safeguard of a flannel waistcoat!
But so it was. Instead of falling a sacrifice to an irresistible passion,
as once she had fondly flattered herself with expecting,—instead of re-
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maining even for ever with her mother, and finding her only pleasures
in retirement and study, as afterwards in her more calm and sober judg-
ment she had determined on,—she found herself at nineteen, submitting
to new attachments, entering on new duties, placed in a new home, a
wife, the mistress of a family, and the patroness of a village.
Colonel Brandon was now as happy, as all those who best loved him,
believed he deserved to be;—in Marianne he was consoled for every past
affliction;—her regard and her society restored his mind to animation,
and his spirits to cheerfulness; and that Marianne found her own hap-
piness in forming his, was equally the persuasion and delight of each
observing friend. Marianne could never love by halves; and her whole
heart became, in time, as much devoted to her husband, as it had once
been to Willoughby.
Willoughby could not hear of her marriage without a pang; and his
punishment was soon afterwards complete in the voluntary forgiveness
of Mrs. Smith, who, by stating his marriage with a woman of character,
as the source of her clemency, gave him reason for believing that had
he behaved with honour towards Marianne, he might at once have been
happy and rich. That his repentance of misconduct, which thus brought
its own punishment, was sincere, need not be doubted;—nor that he long
thought of Colonel Brandon with envy, and of Marianne with regret. But
that he was for ever inconsolable, that he fled from society, or contracted
an habitual gloom of temper, or died of a broken heart, must not be de-
pended on—for he did neither. He lived to exert, and frequently to enjoy
himself. His wife was not always out of humour, nor his home always
uncomfortable; and in his breed of horses and dogs, and in sporting of
every kind, he found no inconsiderable degree of domestic felicity.
For Marianne, however—in spite of his incivility in surviving her
loss—he always retained that decided regard which interested him in
every thing that befell her, and made her his secret standard of perfec-
tion in woman;—and many a rising beauty would be slighted by him in
after-days as bearing no comparison with Mrs. Brandon.
Mrs. Dashwood was prudent enough to remain at the cottage, with-
out attempting a removal to Delaford; and fortunately for Sir John and
Mrs. Jennings, when Marianne was taken from them, Margaret had
reached an age highly suitable for dancing, and not very ineligible for
being supposed to have a lover.
Between Barton and Delaford, there was that constant communica-
tion which strong family affection would naturally dictate;—and among
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the merits and the happiness of Elinor and Marianne, let it not be ranked
as the least considerable, that though sisters, and living almost within
sight of each other, they could live without disagreement between them-
selves, or producing coolness between their husbands.
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