Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 15

Mrs. Dash­wood’s vis­it to La­dy Mid­dle­ton took place the next day, and two of her daugh­ters went with her; but Mar­ianne ex­cused her­self from be­ing of the par­ty, un­der some tri­fling pre­text of em­ploy­ment; and her moth­er, who con­clud­ed that a promise had been made by Willough­by the night be­fore of call­ing on her while they were ab­sent, was per­fect­ly sat­is­fied with her re­main­ing at home.

On their re­turn from the park they found Willough­by’s cur­ri­cle and ser­vant in wait­ing at the cot­tage, and Mrs. Dash­wood was con­vinced that her con­jec­ture had been just. So far it was all as she had fore­seen; but on en­ter­ing the house she be­held what no fore­sight had taught her to ex­pect. They were no soon­er in the pas­sage than Mar­ianne came hasti­ly out of the par­lour ap­par­ent­ly in vi­olent af­flic­tion, with her hand­ker­chief at her eyes; and with­out notic­ing them ran up stairs. Sur­prised and alarmed they pro­ceed­ed di­rect­ly in­to the room she had just quit­ted, where they found on­ly Willough­by, who was lean­ing against the man­tel-​piece with his back to­wards them. He turned round on their com­ing in, and his coun­te­nance shewed that he strong­ly par­took of the emo­tion which over-​pow­ered Mar­ianne.

“Is any­thing the mat­ter with her?” cried Mrs. Dash­wood as she en­tered–“is she ill?”

“I hope not,” he replied, try­ing to look cheer­ful; and with a forced smile present­ly added, “It is I who may rather ex­pect to be ill–for I am now suf­fer­ing un­der a very heavy dis­ap­point­ment!”

“Dis­ap­point­ment?”

“Yes, for I am un­able to keep my en­gage­ment with you. Mrs. Smith has this morn­ing ex­er­cised the priv­ilege of rich­es up­on a poor de­pen­dent cousin, by send­ing me on busi­ness to Lon­don. I have just re­ceived my dis­patch­es, and tak­en my farewell of Al­len­ham; and by way of ex­hil­ara­tion I am now come to take my farewell of you.”

“To Lon­don!–and are you go­ing this morn­ing?”

“Al­most this mo­ment.”

“This is very un­for­tu­nate. But Mrs. Smith must be obliged;–and her busi­ness will not de­tain you from us long I hope.”

He coloured as he replied, “You are very kind, but I have no idea of re­turn­ing in­to De­von­shire im­me­di­ate­ly. My vis­its to Mrs. Smith are nev­er re­peat­ed with­in the twelve­month.”

“And is Mrs. Smith your on­ly friend? Is Al­len­ham the on­ly house in the neigh­bour­hood to which you will be wel­come? For shame, Willough­by, can you wait for an in­vi­ta­tion here?”

His colour in­creased; and with his eyes fixed on the ground he on­ly replied, “You are too good.”

Mrs. Dash­wood looked at Eli­nor with sur­prise. Eli­nor felt equal amaze­ment. For a few mo­ments ev­ery one was silent. Mrs. Dash­wood first spoke.

“I have on­ly to add, my dear Willough­by, that at Bar­ton cot­tage you will al­ways be wel­come; for I will not press you to re­turn here im­me­di­ate­ly, be­cause you on­ly can judge how far THAT might be pleas­ing to Mrs. Smith; and on this head I shall be no more dis­posed to ques­tion your judg­ment than to doubt your in­cli­na­tion.”

“My en­gage­ments at present,” replied Willough­by, con­fus­ed­ly, “are of such a na­ture–that–I dare not flat­ter my­self”–

He stopt. Mrs. Dash­wood was too much as­ton­ished to speak, and an­oth­er pause suc­ceed­ed. This was bro­ken by Willough­by, who said with a faint smile, “It is fol­ly to linger in this man­ner. I will not tor­ment my­self any longer by re­main­ing among friends whose so­ci­ety it is im­pos­si­ble for me now to en­joy.”

He then hasti­ly took leave of them all and left the room. They saw him step in­to his car­riage, and in a minute it was out of sight.

Mrs. Dash­wood felt too much for speech, and in­stant­ly quit­ted the par­lour to give way in soli­tude to the con­cern and alarm which this sud­den de­par­ture oc­ca­sioned.

Eli­nor’s un­easi­ness was at least equal to her moth­er’s. She thought of what had just passed with anx­iety and dis­trust. Willough­by’s be­haviour in tak­ing leave of them, his em­bar­rass­ment, and af­fec­ta­tion of cheer­ful­ness, and, above all, his un­will­ing­ness to ac­cept her moth­er’s in­vi­ta­tion, a back­ward­ness so un­like a lover, so un­like him­self, great­ly dis­turbed her. One mo­ment she feared that no se­ri­ous de­sign had ev­er been formed on his side; and the next that some un­for­tu­nate quar­rel had tak­en place be­tween him and her sis­ter;–the dis­tress in which Mar­ianne had quit­ted the room was such as a se­ri­ous quar­rel could most rea­son­ably ac­count for, though when she con­sid­ered what Mar­ianne’s love for him was, a quar­rel seemed al­most im­pos­si­ble.

But what­ev­er might be the par­tic­ulars of their sep­ara­tion, her sis­ter’s af­flic­tion was in­du­bitable; and she thought with the ten­der­est com­pas­sion of that vi­olent sor­row which Mar­ianne was in all prob­abil­ity not mere­ly giv­ing way to as a re­lief, but feed­ing and en­cour­ag­ing as a du­ty.

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 con­nec­tion, 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 hap­pened. Oh, Eli­nor, how in­com­pre­hen­si­ble are your feel­ings! You had rather take evil up­on cred­it than good. You had rather look out for mis­ery for Mar­ianne, and guilt for poor Willough­by, than an apol­ogy for the lat­ter. You are re­solved to think him blame­able, be­cause he took 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 be­cause 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 en­gage­ment 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, 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 your­self 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 sus­pi­cious 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 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 ac­knowl­edge 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 re­strained 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 anx­ious­ly 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.