Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 9

The Dash­woods were now set­tled at Bar­ton with tol­er­able com­fort to them­selves. The house and the gar­den, with all the ob­jects sur­round­ing them, were now be­come fa­mil­iar, and the or­di­nary pur­suits 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 oc­cu­pa­tion 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 re­spectable 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 an­imat­ing gales of a high south-​west­er­ly wind, they pitied the fears which had pre­vent­ed their moth­er and Eli­nor from shar­ing such de­light­ful sen­sa­tions.

“Is there a fe­lic­ity in the world,” said Mar­ianne, “su­pe­ri­or to this?–Mar­garet, we will walk here at least two hours.”

Mar­garet agreed, and they pur­sued their way against the wind, re­sist­ing it with laugh­ing de­light for about twen­ty min­utes longer, when sud­den­ly the clouds unit­ed over their heads, and a driv­ing rain set full in their face.– Cha­grined and sur­prised, they were obliged, though un­will­ing­ly, to turn back, for no shel­ter was near­er than their own house. One con­so­la­tion how­ev­er re­mained for them, to which the ex­igence of the mo­ment gave more than usu­al pro­pri­ety; it was that of run­ning with all pos­si­ble speed down the steep side of the hill which led im­me­di­ate­ly to their gar­den gate.

They set off. Mar­ianne had at first the ad­van­tage, but a false step brought her sud­den­ly to the ground; and Mar­garet, un­able to stop her­self to as­sist her, was in­vol­un­tar­ily hur­ried along, and reached the bot­tom in safe­ty.

A gen­tle­man car­ry­ing a gun, with two point­ers play­ing round him, was pass­ing up the hill and with­in a few yards of Mar­ianne, when her ac­ci­dent hap­pened. He put down his gun and ran to her as­sis­tance. She had raised her­self from the ground, but her foot had been twist­ed in her fall, and she was scarce­ly able to stand. The gen­tle­man of­fered his ser­vices; and per­ceiv­ing that her mod­esty de­clined what her sit­ua­tion ren­dered nec­es­sary, took her up in his arms with­out far­ther de­lay, and car­ried her down the hill. Then pass­ing through the gar­den, the gate of which had been left open by Mar­garet, he bore her di­rect­ly in­to the house, whith­er Mar­garet was just ar­rived, and quit­ted not his hold till he had seat­ed her in a chair in the par­lour.

Eli­nor and her moth­er rose up in amaze­ment at their en­trance, and while the eyes of both were fixed on him with an ev­ident won­der and a se­cret ad­mi­ra­tion which equal­ly sprung from his ap­pear­ance, he apol­ogized for his in­tru­sion by re­lat­ing its cause, in a man­ner so frank and so grace­ful that his per­son, which was un­com­mon­ly hand­some, re­ceived ad­di­tion­al charms from his voice and ex­pres­sion. Had he been even old, ug­ly, and vul­gar, the grat­itude and kind­ness of Mrs. Dash­wood would have been se­cured by any act of at­ten­tion to her child; but the in­flu­ence of youth, beau­ty, and el­egance, gave an in­ter­est to the ac­tion which came home to her feel­ings.

She thanked him again and again; and, with a sweet­ness of ad­dress which al­ways at­tend­ed her, in­vit­ed him to be seat­ed. But this he de­clined, as he was dirty and wet. Mrs. Dash­wood then begged to know to whom she was obliged. His name, he replied, was Willough­by, and his present 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 in­stant­ly the theme of gen­er­al ad­mi­ra­tion, and the laugh which his gal­lantry raised against Mar­ianne re­ceived par­tic­ular spir­it from his ex­te­ri­or 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 rec­om­mend­ed the ac­tion to her. Ev­ery cir­cum­stance be­long­ing to him was in­ter­est­ing. His name was good, his res­idence was in their favourite vil­lage, 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 gen­tle­man 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?”

But Mar­ianne could no more sat­is­fy him as to the colour of Mr. Willough­by’s point­er, than he could de­scribe to her the shades of his mind.

“But who is he?” said Eli­nor. “Where does he come from? Has he a house at Al­len­ham?”

On this point Sir John could give more cer­tain in­tel­li­gence; and he told them that Mr. Willough­by had no prop­er­ty of his own in the coun­try; that he resid­ed there on­ly while he was vis­it­ing the old la­dy at Al­len­ham Court, to whom he was re­lat­ed, and whose pos­ses­sions he was to in­her­it; adding, “Yes, yes, he is very well worth catch­ing I can tell you, Miss Dash­wood; he has a pret­ty lit­tle es­tate of his own in Som­er­set­shire be­sides; and if I were you, I would not give him up to my younger sis­ter, in spite of all this tum­bling down hills. Miss Mar­ianne must not ex­pect to have all the men to her­self. Bran­don will be jeal­ous, if she does not take care.”

“I do not be­lieve,” said Mrs. Dash­wood, with a good hu­moured smile, “that Mr. Willough­by will be in­com­mod­ed by the at­tempts of ei­ther of MY daugh­ters to­wards what you call CATCH­ING him. It is not an em­ploy­ment to which they have been brought up. Men are very safe with us, let them be ev­er so rich. I am glad to find, how­ev­er, from what you say, that he is a re­spectable young man, and one whose ac­quain­tance will not be in­el­igi­ble.”

“He is as good a sort of fel­low, I be­lieve, as ev­er lived,” re­peat­ed Sir John. “I re­mem­ber last Christ­mas at a lit­tle hop at the park, he danced from eight o’clock till four, with­out once sit­ting down.”

“Did he in­deed?” cried Mar­ianne with sparkling eyes, “and with el­egance, with spir­it?”

“Yes; and he was up again at eight to ride to covert.”

“That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be. What­ev­er be his pur­suits, his ea­ger­ness in them should know no mod­er­ation, and leave him no sense of fa­tigue.”

“Aye, aye, I see how it will be,” said Sir John, “I see how it will be. You will be set­ting your cap at him now, and nev­er think of poor Bran­don.”

“That is an ex­pres­sion, Sir John,” said Mar­ianne, warm­ly, “which I par­tic­ular­ly dis­like. I ab­hor ev­ery com­mon-​place phrase by which wit is in­tend­ed; and ’set­ting one’s cap at a man,’ or ‘mak­ing a con­quest,’ are the most odi­ous of all. Their ten­den­cy is gross and il­lib­er­al; and if their con­struc­tion could ev­er be deemed clever, time has long ago de­stroyed all its in­ge­nu­ity.”

Sir John did not much un­der­stand this re­proof; but he laughed as hearti­ly as if he did, and then replied,

“Ay, you will make con­quests enough, I dare say, one way or oth­er. Poor Bran­don! he is quite smit­ten al­ready, and he is very well worth set­ting your cap at, I can tell you, in spite of all this tum­bling about and sprain­ing of an­kles.”