Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 13

Their in­tend­ed ex­cur­sion to Whitwell turned out very dif­fer­ent from what Eli­nor had ex­pect­ed. She was pre­pared to be wet through, fa­tigued, and fright­ened; but the event was still more un­for­tu­nate, for they did not go at all.

By ten o’clock the whole par­ty was as­sem­bled at the park, where they were to break­fast. The morn­ing was rather favourable, though it had rained all night, as the clouds were then dis­pers­ing across the sky, and the sun fre­quent­ly ap­peared. They were all in high spir­its and good hu­mour, ea­ger to be hap­py, and de­ter­mined to sub­mit to the great­est in­con­ve­niences and hard­ships rather than be oth­er­wise.

While they were at break­fast the let­ters were brought in. Among the rest there was one for Colonel Bran­don;–he took it, looked at the di­rec­tion, changed colour, and im­me­di­ate­ly left the room.

“What is the mat­ter with Bran­don?” said Sir John.

No­body could tell.

“I hope he has had no bad news,” said La­dy Mid­dle­ton. “It must be some­thing ex­traor­di­nary that could make Colonel Bran­don leave my break­fast ta­ble so sud­den­ly.”

In about five min­utes he re­turned.

“No bad news, Colonel, I hope;” said Mrs. Jen­nings, as soon as he en­tered the room.

“None at all, ma’am, I thank you.”

“Was it from Avi­gnon? I hope it is not to say that your sis­ter is worse.”

“No, ma’am. It came from town, and is mere­ly a let­ter of busi­ness.”

“But how came the hand to dis­com­pose you so much, if it was on­ly a let­ter of busi­ness? Come, come, this won’t do, Colonel; so let us hear the truth of it.”

“My dear madam,” said La­dy Mid­dle­ton, “rec­ol­lect what you are say­ing.”

“Per­haps it is to tell you that your cousin Fan­ny is mar­ried?” said Mrs. Jen­nings, with­out at­tend­ing to her daugh­ter’s re­proof.

“No, in­deed, it is not.”

“Well, then, I know who it is from, Colonel. And I hope she is well.”

“Whom do you mean, ma’am?” said he, colour­ing a lit­tle.

“Oh! you know who I mean.”

“I am par­tic­ular­ly sor­ry, ma’am,” said he, ad­dress­ing La­dy Mid­dle­ton, “that I should re­ceive this let­ter to­day, for it is on busi­ness which re­quires my im­me­di­ate at­ten­dance in town.”

“In town!” cried Mrs. Jen­nings. “What can you have to do in town at this time of year?”

“My own loss is great,” be con­tin­ued, “in be­ing obliged to leave so agree­able a par­ty; but I am the more con­cerned, as I fear my pres­ence is nec­es­sary to gain your ad­mit­tance at Whitwell.”

What a blow up­on them all was this!

“But if you write a note to the house­keep­er, Mr. Bran­don,” said Mar­ianne, ea­ger­ly, “will it not be suf­fi­cient?”

He shook his head.

“We must go,” said Sir John.–“It shall not be put off when we are so near it. You can­not go to town till to­mor­row, Bran­don, that is all.”

“I wish it could be so eas­ily set­tled. But it is not in my pow­er to de­lay my jour­ney for one day!”

“If you would but let us know what your busi­ness is,” said Mrs. Jen­nings, “we might see whether it could be put off or not.”

“You would not be six hours lat­er,” said Willough­by, “if you were to de­fer your jour­ney till our re­turn.”

“I can­not af­ford to lose ONE hour.”–

Eli­nor then heard Willough­by say, in a low voice to Mar­ianne, “There are some peo­ple who can­not bear a par­ty of plea­sure. Bran­don is one of them. He was afraid of catch­ing cold I dare say, and in­vent­ed this trick for get­ting out of it. I would lay fifty guineas the let­ter was of his own writ­ing.”

“I have no doubt of it,” replied Mar­ianne.

“There is no per­suad­ing you to change your mind, Bran­don, I know of old,” said Sir John, “when once you are de­ter­mined on any­thing. But, how­ev­er, I hope you will think bet­ter of it. Con­sid­er, here are the two Miss Careys come over from New­ton, the three Miss Dash­woods walked up from the cot­tage, and Mr. Willough­by got up two hours be­fore his usu­al time, on pur­pose to go to Whitwell.”

Colonel Bran­don again re­peat­ed his sor­row at be­ing the cause of dis­ap­point­ing 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 re­strained, 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 ex­ult­ing­ly.

“Can you, ma’am?” said al­most ev­ery body.

“Yes; it is about Miss Williams, I am sure.”

“And who is Miss Williams?” asked Mar­ianne.

“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 re­gret 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 hap­pi­ness 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 hap­pi­er 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 Mar­ianne, 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 de­ter­mined 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 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 un­like­ly 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 em­ploy­ment 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 com­men­da­tion. 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; 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 oth­ers, she would have de­scribed ev­ery room in the house with equal de­light.