Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 10

Mar­ianne’s pre­serv­er, as Mar­garet, with more el­egance than pre­ci­sion, styled Willough­by, called at the cot­tage ear­ly the next morn­ing to make his per­son­al en­quiries. He was re­ceived by Mrs. Dash­wood with more than po­lite­ness; with a kind­ness which Sir John’s ac­count of him and her own grat­itude prompt­ed; and ev­ery thing that passed dur­ing the vis­it tend­ed to as­sure him of the sense, el­egance, mu­tu­al af­fec­tion, and do­mes­tic com­fort of the fam­ily to whom ac­ci­dent had now in­tro­duced him. Of their per­son­al charms he had not re­quired a sec­ond in­ter­view to be con­vinced.

Miss Dash­wood had a del­icate com­plex­ion, reg­ular fea­tures, and a re­mark­ably pret­ty fig­ure. Mar­ianne was still hand­somer. Her form, though not so cor­rect as her sis­ter’s, in hav­ing the ad­van­tage of height, was more strik­ing; and her face was so love­ly, that when in the com­mon cant of praise, she was called a beau­ti­ful girl, truth was less vi­olent­ly out­raged than usu­al­ly hap­pens. Her skin was very brown, but, from its trans­paren­cy, her com­plex­ion was un­com­mon­ly bril­liant; her fea­tures were all good; her smile was sweet and at­trac­tive; and in her eyes, which were very dark, there was a life, a spir­it, an ea­ger­ness, which could hardi­ly be seen with­out de­light. From Willough­by their ex­pres­sion was at first held back, by the em­bar­rass­ment which the re­mem­brance of his as­sis­tance cre­at­ed. But when this passed away, when her spir­its be­came col­lect­ed, when she saw that to the per­fect good-​breed­ing of the gen­tle­man, he unit­ed frank­ness and vi­vac­ity, and above all, when she heard him de­clare, that of mu­sic and danc­ing he was pas­sion­ate­ly fond, she gave him such a look of ap­pro­ba­tion as se­cured the largest share of his dis­course to her­self for the rest of his stay.

It was on­ly nec­es­sary to men­tion any favourite amuse­ment to en­gage her to talk. She could not be silent when such points were in­tro­duced, 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 au­thors 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 ap­peared, any ob­jec­tion arose, it last­ed no longer than till the force of her ar­gu­ments and the bright­ness of her eyes could be dis­played. He ac­qui­esced 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 es­ti­mat­ing 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. An­oth­er 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 ac­quain­tance, which an ev­ident wish of im­prov­ing it could of­fer. He came to them ev­ery day. To en­quire af­ter Mar­ianne was at first his ex­cuse; 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 en­gage 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 in­creased 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 con­sid­er­able; 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 sat­is­fy 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 in­curred be­fore any par­tial­ity arose, was re­moved when his feel­ings be­gan 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 dis­po­si­tion be­tween the par­ties might for­ward the af­fec­tion of Mr. Willough­by, an equal­ly strik­ing op­po­si­tion of char­ac­ter was no hin­drance to the re­gard 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 op­pres­sion 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 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 trou­ble­some.”

“He WOULD have told me so, I doubt not, had I made any such in­quiries, 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 fur­ther 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 ar­dour, and his voice no ex­pres­sion.”

“You de­cide on his im­per­fec­tions so much in the mass,” replied Eli­nor, “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 un­kind­ly. 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 re­spects 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.”